Synopsis:
In The Land Of Women is the story of Carter Webb (Adam Brody of The OC and Gilmore Girls). Carter is a writer of semi-porn fare you'd find on Cinemax or Showtime at 3 in the morning. The film starts with Carter being dumped by his supermodel girlfriend. After a self-analysis concluding that L.A. is not the place to be, Carter goes to live with his senile grandmother (Olympia Dukakis). What is supposed to be more of a refresh on his life turns into a learning experience when he meets the two women across the street, Lucy (Kristen Stewart) and her mother Sarah (Meg Ryan). Carter befriends both women in different ways and the women come to terms with various issues in their lives.
The Freak's Rating: C :
I really wanted to LOVE this movie. The trailer (shown on the right of my
blog) builds this up as a wonderful character-driven piece with all the
feel-good and feel-not-so-good moments that makeup a great film. Watching
the trailer, you think you'll be spun around disliking characters, then
liking them, hating them, then loving them...and at the end you'll leave
learning something about how you might want to live your life a little
differently. There is even a reference in the trailer to how he wants to
learn all "the John Hughes stuff", which immediately labels him as old. It
had all the potential in the world.
After
watching the film, I'll say that I was right about potential. This movie
screamed potential throughout the entire story and just never went anywhere
with it. The characters in this film are developed beautifully. Kristen
Stewart is the true star of the movie and will no doubt go on to bigger and
better things. Her portrayal of a teenage girl going through the angst of
high school is the most realistic I've seen. The dialogue is a little too
smart here, with you feeling like you're in an episode of Dawson's Creek.
Adam Brody is semi-likeable, but his character has entirely too many astute observations summed up into punch-line-like statements. Olympia Dukakis is underused here and Meg Ryan is a tad over the top. Still, the writing carried me through the whole thing with the feeling all along that I would ultimately love the film. Sadly the direction the film went in the third act seemed contrived. Better editing and toned-down writing may have made this an amazing film...as it stands it is simply mediocre.
Adam Brody is semi-likeable, but his character has entirely too many astute observations summed up into punch-line-like statements. Olympia Dukakis is underused here and Meg Ryan is a tad over the top. Still, the writing carried me through the whole thing with the feeling all along that I would ultimately love the film. Sadly the direction the film went in the third act seemed contrived. Better editing and toned-down writing may have made this an amazing film...as it stands it is simply mediocre.
