I’ve been a fan of Rebecca Miller’s work ever since I saw Personal Velocity at Sundance in 1992. What I like most about her is that she makes movies where the women are necessarily very likable. They are complicated and screwed up and not your typical Hollywood fare. Her latest film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee which she wrote and directed (based on her novel) opened last week in NY and LA and will be opening further in the coming weeks.
The film stars Robin Wright as a woman who discovers as she approaches 50, that she has no idea who she is and it scares her into changing her whole life. Pippa spent most of her adult life married to a man 30 years older because she was desperate for security after growing up with a manic and medicated mother (played by Maria Bello.) She meets an older book publisher Herb Lee (Alan Arkin) and — after a tragedy with his rich Italian wife — makes a life with him and their two children.
As the movie begins, they move from NYC into an Connecticut retirement community (keep in mind that Pippa is nowhere near retirement age) and everything unravels. Robin Wright gives a very strong performance as Pippa, a woman who begins the movie as a weak, and gradually gets stronger as she realizes she has plenty of time to discover who she is and what she wants in life. Blake Lively plays the young Pippa, a wild child desperate for love.
What moved me a lot was the relationship that Pippa had with her kids. Her son Ben (Ryan McDonald) adores her, yet her daughter Grace (Zoe Kazan) cannot stand her. She’s a daddy’s girl, a high risk photographer and looks down at her mother for having no career or life outside of her family. My favorite scene was when mother and daughter really talked to each other and Grace admits how she feels and how much effort it takes to hate her mom. That scene between Wright and Kazan was fantastic.
I don’t really know why Rebecca Miller’s work doesn’t get the recognition it should. Actors seem to love to work with her based on the stellar cast in this film in very small roles including Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves among others. But this film is Robin Wright’s film, and as always, she is really interesting and mercurial. Now that we are in the year end awards conversations, I think that people should take a hard look at her performance, because she is a woman at the top of her craft.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is now playing in NY and LA. Here is info on where the film will be rolling out.
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