‘Land of Women’: You
can leave Kleenex at home

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

Cut from the same cloth as films like Garden State and The Graduate, In the Land of Women isn’t anything new in the world of moviemaking. However, slice-of-life movies like this are rare, coming out only once or twice a year.
Although a bit too melodramatic for my tastes, In the Land of Women is entertaining enough. The feature film directorial debut of Jon Kasdan (the twenty-something son of Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote and directed The Big Chill) is semi-successful. Jon Kasdan, who also wrote this flick, squeezes a lot of drama into the 100-minute movie.
Zach Braff, who has had the lock on recent coming-of-age, quarter-life-crisis movies — he starred in Garden State and The Last Kiss — should make room for Adam Brody.
Brody (The O.C.) proves he can be a leading man on the big screen, because his presence carries In the Land of Women. Fans of the tall and lanky but handsome Brody will crowd the theaters. Brody has a lovable-loser persona that serves him well in this film.
Brody plays Carter Webb, an L.A. writer of soft-core porn who yearns to pen a book on his high school years. His model/actress girlfriend inexplicably dumps him at a coffee shop, leaving him crushed. Carter just wants to get away from it all, and the opportunity arises to visit and care for his ailing grandmother in Michigan.
Grandma Phyllis (Olympia Dukakis) is a few cards short of a full deck. While not physically sick, she is certain that death is knocking at her door. Dukakis’ scenes as the crazy lady are funny and provide some much-needed comic relief for this heavy film.
Although Carter intended to get away from his woman troubles in Michigan, he finds himself entangled in the lives of the family across the street. He first bonds with stay-at-home mom Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) while she’s walking her dog. An attraction is there between them, but Sarah senses it’s wrong and encourages her teenage daughter Lucy (Kristen Stewart) to befriend Carter and take him to the movies.
Lucy has the typical teenage angst, not wanting to have anything to do with her mother and unable to navigate the difficult world of dating. Sarah can’t figure out where she went wrong with Lucy.
Both mom and daughter are attracted to Carter and begin unloading all their problems on him, which makes him focus less on his own problems as he tries to help the quarreling mom and daughter find their way back to each other.
In the Land of Women starts to get a bit too clichéd for me, especially as some characters find themselves kissing in the rain and another character is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. It seems as if Kasdan was trying to make this a tearjerker, but I didn’t feel invested enough in any of the characters to shed a tear during their hardships.
You may feel bad for Sarah as a lonely housewife who knows her husband is cheating. Meg Ryan’s plump lips are hard to ignore, but her performance as Sarah is a nice one. Ryan hasn’t been in a movie in three years, and I wonder what it was about this role that caught her eye. She may want to be remembered as more than just Tom Hanks’ movie love interest.
In a way, this role is sort of the Anne Bancroft Mrs. Robinson role, without as much seduction on her part. But when it becomes clear that her daughter has feelings for Carter, Sarah is adamant that Carter and Lucy can’t be together.
The film’s conclusion doesn’t exactly leave me wanting more. While it makes sense for Kasdan to end the film in the manner he did, I found the ending quite unsatisfying. Movies like this rarely have tidy endings; they just sort of end, even if the loose ends aren’t all tied up. ••
Movie Grade: B-