I sort of lost track of Rebecca Miller’s The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, a semi-biographical, ensemble film featuring Robin Wright Penn in the lead role/Miller’s former shoes. I thought it would end up showing at Sundance, but it ended up going to Berlin the month after and the reviews from two of the three major trades were less kindly than they were for Miller’s previous pair of The Ballad of Jack and Rose and Personal Velocity. Variety said it had “cardboard characters and severe problems of tone” and The Hollywood Reporter mentioned it’s “the kind of film that most critics desperately want to like.” We’ll be able to test both theories as Screen Daily reports that Screen Media has picked up the rights to the pic and plans are to unveil it in October. Below you can find the off-putting trailer.
There are the ensemble pics that work, and then there are those you want to have work but end up fizzling. I can’t vouch for either as I’ve yet to see the pic, but the cast of Keanu Reeves, Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Winona Ryder, Julianne Moore and Monica Bellucci should be able to get enough people in the seats to turn a profit. Based on Rebecca Miller’s novel of the same title, the story centers on Pippa Lee – a 50-year-old wife (Robin Wright Penn) and mother whose husband has an affair (mirroring Pippa’s own adventures with a married man when she was a young woman). She also has to reconcile her own past with her pill-addicted mother.
