In the Land of Women [DVD] [Standard]

This is a surprisingly nicely done coming of age film. Adam Brody isn't your typical teenage nerd. He's 26. And he's living with his dying grandmother because he has writer's block. He breaks up with a superstar. Meets the woman across the street. And meets her daughter. Meg Ryan is the woman across the street. And she is effective in this role. Kristen Stewart is her daughter. A nice piece of casting. And all three work together. Olympia Dukakis works well as the grandmother. No relationship in this is what you think it is. The envelope is stretched a bit. Yes there are cliches. But they ultimately don't get in the way because they are exploded. If you want a film that you feel good about when you're finished watching, this is for you.

Brody's character Carter Webb seems to rescue the women around him, but Brody's style of delivering the sometimes clever/sometimes trite lines rescues the movie from total obscurity. Meg Ryan delivers a good yet relatively forgettable performance, and the other characters seem unimportant even to themselves. Unlike many movies out now, I did not find myself looking at the clock constantly to see how soon it would end, yet it didn't leave me feeling particularly moved, or particularly anything for that matter. Overall, not bad for a weekend rental but not much substance that makes it worth buying.