IN THE LAND OF WOMEN

You know, this isn’t a perfect movie. It has some flaws (most notably making the wrong character its central focus) and occasionally veers into made-for-TV territory. But, dammit, I really liked it.

Adam Brody stars as Carter Webb, a guy who not only has a name clearly created by a screenwriter (see also: Topher Grace as Carter Duryea in In Good Company or Ewan McGregor as Catcher Block in Down With Love) but who is a screenwriter himself. He writes soft-core porn films in L.A. and has just been dumped by his actress girlfriend (Elena Ayana). Depressed and dejected, Carter decides to recharge by going to visit his demented (in the dementia way) grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) in Michigan. He’s not there very long when he realizes that grandma – who’s preoccupied with her own impending demise – is losing her grip on reality, and this “visit” will likely be more difficult than he’d imagined.

Then he meets the neighbors across the street.

Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) is a wife and mother, but not entirely happy with either role. She’s earthy and funny and likable, but she’s also dealing with some serious issues. Her oldest daughter, Lucy (Kristen Stewart, who’s becoming quite the talent), is a rebel without a cause, smoking and staying out late and basically behaving like a brat. Younger daughter Paige (Makenzie Vega) is wise beyond her years, empathetic and adorable. All three eventually find their lives intertwined with Carter’s, all three gradually reveal previously unseen sides of themselves, and the older two both begin falling for Carter’s impish, quirky charms. In the process, Carter learns some lessons about love and family and, more than once, I had to dab my teary eyes.

The story is fine. It’s not groundbreaking or tiresome, just fine. And touching. While all the characters are interesting and watchable, I think writer-director Jon Kasdan makes a critical error in having the movie be about Carter’s journey, when it was so clear to me that the film might have been even better if it had been Sarah’s story. As it stands, Sarah is a supporting character who should probably get fourth or fifth billing if billing were awarded based on screen time. As she did in When a Man Loves a Woman, Meg Ryan reminds us that she can act when she wants to, and she doesn’t have to be making puppy dog eyes at Tom Hanks in order to do so. Whenever Sarah was onscreen, I leaned forward in my seat a little; whenever she was gone, I wondered why we weren’t following her. A role like this is even more important for Ryan nowadays, when talk of her talent has faded in favor of discussion over her latest collagen injections.

Carter Webb is a character, however endearing, that we’ve seen time and time again onscreen: the struggling writer trying to make sense of his life; the young guy learning about growing up; the hopeless romantic who can’t find love until he goes to a new town and meets a free spirit who changes his life. And so on. While I enjoyed Adam Brody’s performance a lot, I’ve seen it before. Ryan’s, on the other hand, was new for her: understated, poignant, vulnerable. Sarah would have made a much better lead than Carter but, as it stands, Carter (like the story) still does fine under the circumstances.