Writer and
Director Nicole Holofcener hasn’t made a motion picture since
her wonderful 1996 debut Walking and Talking. In the six
years since, she has mostly dabbled in writing and directing a
few episodes of HBO’s Sex and the City. Holofcener was
also quietly scribbling out and perfecting her next feature
script, the female relationship drama Lovely & Amazing.
This is one case where taking that time to fully flesh out a
screenplay has paid off handsomely, as the resulting film is a
perfect pleasure in nearly every way.
It all
starts with a smile from three women. Artificial as they may be,
these expressions of happiness mask long simmering feelings of
inadequacy and regret and are these women’s armor against a
threatening world. In fact, as soon as the targets of these
upturned glances move away, a deep-rooted look of angst and
longing envelopes each of them. It is a pointed montage and
hints at the emotional nuance Lovely & Amazing will hope
to dive.
These
women in turn are: Michelle Marks (Catherine Keener), lonely
housewife and mother who also fancies herself a bit of an
artist, making items as cute and surreal as homemade gift wrap
and tiny chairs made out of twigs and flowers; her sister
Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer), an up and coming actress who’s
painfully timid when it comes to the imperfection of her own
body and what that means in regards to her chosen profession;
and their mother Jane (Brenda Blethyn), who’s battling her own
insecurities by getting liposuction and adopting an overweight
African American child named Annie (Raven Goodwin).
Michelle
is the saddest and angriest of the trio. She’s fiercely
protective and loving of her own daughter, trying to shield her
from the regret and pathos the world she feels has dumped on
her. In fact, she’s pretty sure her marriage is failing, her
husband working long hours and not seeming interested in her at
all when he’s at home. But then, how could he? Michelle isn’t
even interested in herself. She’s aggressively sarcastic and
angry towards the world and those she sees as standing in her
way, a deep-rooted diffidence towards taking chances keeping her
from any sort of excellence.
Her sister
isn’t doing much better. Even though she’s up for the plumb role
in a new film starring Hollywood’s reining superstar Kevin
McCabe (Dermot Mulroney), Elizabeth is so uncomfortable with her
own sexuality that the actress is sure she is wrong for the part
before she even reads. Later on, running into McCabe at the
supermarket, Elizabeth enters into a short and passionate affair
with the actor, but not before grilling him on every one of her
physical imperfections.
Meanwhile,
their mother has complications reacting to her liposuction and
finds herself stuck in the hospital under intensive care. This
devastates Annie, whom in a short period of time has found
herself becoming more and more attached to her new mother. In
fact, she’s fascinated with trying to find ways to become more
like Jane and her two other daughters, wondering why people have
be different at all.
Lovely &
Amazing
strolls through their lives staring deeply at the melancholia
that follows them in dealings with their men, work, bodies and
each other. But even if in the end there are no answers to these
daily demons that can plague a person – especially women –
during their lives, there is still the safe haven of family in
all its seeming dysfunction to cling to. If Holofcener finds
some sort of inner peace for her characters in realizing just
that, the same can also be said for many of us in our own daily
lives, too.
The film
is amazingly well acted. Keener particularly stands out giving
one of the most heartfelt and deeply passionate performances of
the year. Michelle isn’t an easy woman to relate to let alone
like, yet as the film progresses I was drawn more and more
towards her inner warmth and charm discovering pieces of myself
in her own persona. This is probably Keener’s best portrayal,
and the Being John Malkovich actress makes the most of
such a well-rounded character.
Mortimer
is just as good as the mousy Elizabeth. Her nude scene with
Mulroney is breathtaking in its simplistic glory. Neither
sensationalistic nor over-the-top, the two actors play off each
other so well that the moment is a true treasure, reveling in
the sublime uniqueness of the female body. Blethyn, too, is very
good, although I kept finding myself wishing she was on screen
just a bit more to better understand just where these women’s
insecurities come from.
I could
nit pick about one or two other things; I have trouble believing
Elizabeth’s agent could be so vacuous to forget Elizabeth’s name
within a few moments or that Annie’s African American big sister
(from Big Brothers/Big Sisters) would be so quick to give up
being a mentor to the child when problems arise; but they are
small and don’t really affect the emotional vibrancy of the
film. Holofcener’s script is so good, her direction so pitch
perfect and the performers matched to their roles so well,
Lovely & Amazing emerges as a small miracle in many ways.
It is a
movie that is both lovely and amazing, speaking to the
uniqueness of humanity and the gloriously comforting dysfunction
of family. In a young year devoid of many true standouts, here’s
one I think just might stand tall all the way to the end.
