Lovely and Amazing

Synopsis: Once upon a time, Jane Marks (Brenda Blethyn) had two daughters, Michelle (Catherine Keener) and Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) then they grew up and she adopted Annie (Raven Goodwin). They are all finding life in modern day America somewhat of a challenge. Will they find their happy ending?

With a title like Lovely and Amazing, you have to wonder in what way it might be relevant to the overall story, well I did.  It is a line from the film, however I won't give away who says it, and what it refers to. What I will give away is, that this film revels in the dysfunctional. Dysfunctional can be extremely amusing. Just think, Woody Allen. It beats fake happy families. Everything starts off well, as each woman is introduced, one's curiosity is aroused; how on earth could these women have anything in common? Other than family ties, they don't, and that's the problem.

Before we go down that road, let's accentuate the positive. It's written and directed by a woman, a rare occurrence for a film out of Los Angeles. The character-driven, rambling narrative, with its open ended finale is a relief from the block buster action-oriented films showing at a cinema complex near you. The performances are good, and there are several cute dogs. In an interview in The Observer, the director states, " because a lot of it is taken from my own experience, I didn't care if the audience didn't like the characters in the beginning. As long as by the end you're involved and engaged by them, then you'll love them."

I tried to loved them, I even wanted to love them, however most of the film I kept wishing they would all do therapy. Dysfunction is the big secret we now love to reveal. Bring on Jerry Springer and Rikki Lake. Holocener's intention was to look at the way inherited qualities affect our lives, and how we cope with them. I suppose I was hoping for more. Can't we have our neuroses and our relationships as well?

American Beauty captured middle class society in the act as it unravelled before our eyes. I thought, so this is what we have become as the product of a society out of kilter - or something like that. Why didn't Lovely and Amazing do it for me, I felt I was watching a bunch of spoilt women behaving badly who should have known better. Grow up sisters.

 

 

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