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entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
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by rick grant
rickgrant01@comcast.net
B Rated PG-13 100 min
Any similarity to Zach Graff’s Garden State and this film is probably intentional. Jonathan Kasdan’s screenplay seemed inspired by Graff’s State, in that it’s about a protagonist, who, along with the other characters, is a crossroads in their lives. Adam Brody (O.C.’s heart-throb) portrays Carter Webb, a writer of soft porn scripts for video production.
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When Carter’s girlfriend, supermodel, Sofia Bunuel (Elena Anaya) dumps him, he is devastated. He decides that what he needs is a change of scenery. So he travels to Michigan to visit his Grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) and work on a book he intended to write in his teens.
Carter is a handsome guy who attracts women with his easy going manner and willingness to listen to them. The first day he’s there, he meets his neighbor, Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan), a lonely housewife whose husband is cheating on her. Sarah is strangely drawn to Carter. Her teenage daughter, Lucy (Kristen Stewart) is also smitten by Carter. Even Lucy’s 11 year-old sister, Paige, thinks Carter is cool.
Before long, Sarah invites Carter on her walks with the dog. This fortysomething wife and mother is suddenly pouring her heart out to Carter, who is 26. The walks turn into more than just a friendly stroll with the dog. But Carter is careful not to get too entangled with Sarah. It could blow up in his face.
Lucy gets permission from her mom to go on a date with Carter and Paige tags along. Carter realizes that Lucy is much too immature for him, but he plays along to appease her. Then Lucy drags Carter to a wild party that further convinces Carter that Lucy is way too young for him.
Lucy feels guilty that she hasn’t always been on good terms with her mom. Curiously, Sarah’s sudden illness alienates Lucy from her mom and she feels bad about her feelings. Of course, Carter is caught in the middle of this family conflict. Then there is the matter of Sarah’s husband’s infidelity, which is tearing the marriage apart.
To complicate matters further, Carter gets a call from Sofia, who thinks she may have made a mistake breaking up with him. Yes, Carter is trapped in the emotional turmoil of three females, each going though a crisis. So he does a wise thing–he starts writing his book and taking care of his grandma. Olivia Dukakis steals the movie as the crazy grandma who has been telling her family that she’s dying for years. Her off-the-cuff remarks are hilarious.
The main flaw in this scenario is incomplete character development of Sarah’s clan. Viewers could relate to Sarah and Lucy if they knew more about their lives. But Sarah just pops up out of the blue. The romantic development of Carter and Sarah’s characters should have gone further, thus giving the story more depth.
Still, the interplay between Carter and Sarah is engrossing. Viewers respect Carter for playing it cool and not jumping into a sexual relationship with Sarah. Of course, that is where it was headed--a spurned lonely woman who is desperate for attention could not resist this young sympathetic hunk.
Although viewers will admire Carter for his restraint with Sarah, it seems implausible that a young horny man could resist Sarah’s allure. Yet, he did the gentlemanly thing by trying to understand her dilemma and her humiliation at staying with the family while her husband cavorted with another woman. Will his time at his grandma’s give him a new perspective? Ah yes, that is the hook of this drama.
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