Rating:
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Producers: Anthony Bregman, Eric d'Arbeloff, Ted Hope
Writer: Nicole Holofcener
Director of Photography: Harlan Bosmajian
Cast: Brenda Blethyn, Catherine Keener, Emily Mortimer
| LOVELY & AMAZING Rating: Director: Nicole Holofcener Producers: Anthony Bregman, Eric d'Arbeloff, Ted Hope Writer: Nicole Holofcener Director of Photography: Harlan Bosmajian Cast: Brenda Blethyn, Catherine Keener, Emily Mortimer |
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Review by: Ryan
Kugler
6/18/02
Lovely & Amazing is an engrossing and entertaining look at the lives of three sisters and the relationships that they share with men, their mother and each other. It sounds like a typical chick flick, but in the hands of writer/director Nicole Holofcener (Walking & Talking), it's anything but. This is a smartly written, nicely acted slice-of-life dramady with characters whom I genuinely cared about and liked spending time with. Although this may appear like a film without much of an appeal for men, it's actually one that all audiences should be able to relate to and embrace.
There's no real beginning, middle or end, as this is more of a character piece than a straightforward narrative. What little plot there is kicks into gear when Jane Marks (Brenda Blethyn) checks into the hospital for a simple liposuction procedure and leaves her adopted ten-year-old African-American daughter (Raven Goodwin in a natural and heartbreaking performance) in the care of her older daughters Elizabeth and Michelle. Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) is a struggling actress who has just completed a small part in a film and is looking to do bigger things. Certain factors make her life and career rather difficult, such as a serious self-image problem, a bitchy agent who treats her as a nuisance, a boyfriend (James Le Gros) who feigns interest in her and her predilection for picking up stray dogs that need to be cared for. Michelle (Indie-goddess Catherine Keener) also has her share of problems as she's a struggling artist who has never really grown up and isn't ready for the real world. She's married to a cheating man, whom shows absolutely no interest in her anymore, though she stays with him for the benefit of their young daughter. After several rejections from art stores who refuse to hawk her hand-sculpted mini-chairs, she finally decides that it's time to get a real job. She goes to the local one-hour photo and asks the young misfit behind the counter (Donnie Darko star Jake Gyllenhaal) for some work. He's smitten with her right away and tells her that she's cute. She says that she's old enough to be his mother and he replies that his mother's pretty cute.
Jane's surgery hits a snag and she ends up spending a lot more time in the hospital than was originally planned. Elizabeth's boyfriend dumps her and she has a one-night stand with Kevin McCabe (Dermot Mulroney in the film's funniest performance), a famous actor that she meets during an audition. Michelle takes the job at the photomat and hooks-up with her seventeen year-old co-worker. Annie, who loves her mother more than anything in the world and is having a hard time being away from her, eats and eats in order to numb her pain (the pain of being a heavy child and the pain she feels being African-American).
Two factors made this film really work
for me. Through Holofcener's witty screenplay and the uniformly
excellent acting by the talented cast, I was able to invest something
in these characters and I felt an emotional attachment to each.
These are real people in real-life situations and spending ninety
minutes with them is a treat. It's true that things aren't neatly
wrapped up at the end (which might cause disappoint in audiences
looking for a more traditional narrative), but in life, things
rarely are.
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