Tag Archive for 'Robin Wright'

The Exploding Girl

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on March 12, 2010
in Reviews
. 1 Comment

I’ve been watching Zoe Kazan since I saw her on stage in The Seagull where she and Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan acted circles around veteran actors Kristen Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard.  Last year was a breakthrough year for her onscreen playing daughters, first of Robin Wright in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and then of Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated.

But this year begins with a bang and Zoe gets her own film.  She stars as the Exploding Girl in Bradley Rust Gray’s new film.  He wrote it for Zoe after they spent a lot of time walking and talking together.  Zoe plays Ivy a young college student home for spring break.  She’s at the beginning of a new relationship with a guy at school and this week away has made Ivy unsure of how they feel about each other.  Ivy is a typical 20 year old and spends a lot on time on the phone.  The cell phone is basically a character in the film.  The conversations with Ivy and the boyfriend are full of awkward silences and remind us that while we might be more connected to people, at the same time it’s even harder to truly connect.

The emotions of a young woman not yet an adult and no longer child are written all over Zoe’s face.  She’s at the stage where everything feels slippery and unsure.  She doesn’t yet know where she fits into the world and to complicate matters she also has to deal with a chronic medical condition that has made her grow up much faster than others around her.  For example, she might have a hard time having children because of the medication she takes.  That’s just her reality.  She also can’t take a bath alone because she could have a seizure and drown.  But she manages this chronic condition with the help and understanding of her long time friend Al (played by Mark Rendall), and their week together (his parents rented out his room so he sleeps on Ivy’s mom’s couch) brings to the fore feelings she really never knew she had.

Zoe Kazan is the real deal.  She’s going to have a long career in film and theatre as an actor and a writer since she is also a playwright.  I am excited to keep watching her work.  Count me as a big fan.

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Tags: Kristen Scott Thomas, Meryl Streep, Robin Wright, Zoe Kazan

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on November 30, 2009
in Reviews
. 0 Comments

The-Private-Lives-Of-Pippa-Lee-2009-Cd-Cover-9199I’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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Tags: Blake Lively, Maria Bello, Rebecca Miller, Robin Wright

Holiday Movie Preview- Lots for and About Women

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on November 11, 2009
in Movies
. 8 Comments

nov132009_1075_lgI love when I get my Entertainment Weekly preview issues.  Just love them.  This year’s holiday movie preview just arrived and lo and behold it looks like it could be a pretty decent season for us women.

The season has already begun with Oscar frontrunner Precious, but when the cover gives me a picture of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in a Nancy Meyers flick, I am happy.  It’s Complicated opens on December 25 and I for one cannot wait to see it.  It’s looks to be Something’s Gotta Give but even better.

I am also psyched for Sandra Bullock’s new film (she has been busy this year) The Blind Side based on the Michael Lewis book.  It’s about a white couple from Memphis who take in a homeless very large African-American teenager and makes him a part of their family.  Here’s the description: “A cross-pollination of heart warming family film and rousing sports movie, with a little Erin Brockovich social consciousness thrown in…”  My kind of movie.  Sounds like this film can get the guys and the girls.

The whispers are starting about Bullock’s performance (haven’t seen it yet) as Oscar material but she shuns that kind of conversation.

“People who do what I do don’t do award winning films…which is kind of a relief…I’d rather roll home, put on the jeans, go outside, pick up dog poop, or go for a run or something.”

Another reason why I love her.  She’d rather pick up dog poop than wear a fancy dress.

Then of course there is juggernaut of Twilight- New Moon which opens opposite The Blind Side and this movie will be HUGE.  (working on a separate post about this.)  I think it will beat Twilight’s 68 million opening weekend numbers.

I’m about to see The Private Lives of Pippa Lee written and directed by Rebecca Miller based on her own novel starring Robin Wright.  Wright who has shed soon to be ex Sean’s last name feels like she has finally gotten a juicy role and she is psyched:

Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and the Kates have all gotten great roles, and were so good in them, and now I got one…I finally got one.

Here’s a little shout out to the adorable Anna Kendrick who at 24 really holds her own opposite George Clooney in Up in the Air.  Here’s what she said that got me loving her:

My character is so rare.  She doesn’t have sex with anybody.  She doesn’t revolve around the boy.  She’s smart and complicated and really messed up.

She knows the it may be a while because she gets another character like this, which incidentally writer/director Jason Reitman wrote with her in mind.

I’m going to have to deal with a lot of characters that revolve around a guy or just aren’t that well-rounded.

Isn’t it sad that a 24 year old knows that she may have already have gotten the best part of her career already?  Hopefully, that’s not true since based on her performance and the Oscar buzz, she’s going to be around a long, long time.

Other movies (including some that star guys) I am looking forward to over these next couple of months include: Avatar; A Single Man; The Lovely Bones; Nine; Invictus; Brothers; The Last Station; Serious Moonlight; Did You Hear About the Morgans?; The Young Victoria and The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond.

What movies are you looking forward to?

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Tags: It's Complicted, Meryl Streep, Precious, Rebecca Miller, Robin Wright, Sandra Bullock, The P, The Blind Side, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee