In the Land of Women | Review

Melodrama lacks conviction, ambition and orginality.

He might belong to the same gene pool as the person who gave us The Big Chill, but for writer-director Jonathan Kasdan, overseeing complex themes as in a strained mother-daughter relationship, adultery from the point of view of a young adult and the overcoming a life-threatening and life-altering disease proves to be a little much for the first time director. Giving his film a planned, cumbersome treatment proves to be fatal to the film’s character and desired tone, all In the Land of Women manages to do is add an air of modernity to what is considered cliché and give viewers one more ungenuine look at how people in suburban neighborhoods communicate with one another.

The narrative does not waste much time in shifting the storyline and the film’s protagonist from a modest Los Angeles setting to a white middle-class neighborhood, this generation’s version of the 80’s pizza delivery boy Patrick Dempsey in young television star Adam Brody who owns the sort of facial features that advertises instant likeability, one that would make any parent feel at ease and make any MILF consider a fling with a younger male. For some facile reason he manages to gain access into the mysterious female psyche – perhaps it is indeed his good-natured, dorky-looking and generation John Hughes connoisseur in him that in greater depth give him the pick of the litter but it remains awfully baffling that middle-aged women and introverted teen would confide in him. This family across the street is more than happy to spill the beans – and from a little bit after the painstakingly plain first couple of sequences to the film’s last final resting spot, everyone connected gives access to their secret gardens and secret jungles (don’t ask).

The narrative measures each sequences, dramatizing the events by having Meg Ryan provide the camera with stern looks or by having a teen girl smoking a cancer stick and ad-libbing a couple of well-placed blasphemous dialogue. Important themes get lost in the shuffle, and Meg Ryan’s putting on the brave-face hardly brings home the dramatic bacon.

The films lacks edge – it plays everything safe, and not because the main character is a writer for soft core pornos does this make him daring. The storyline simulates the different moods and disappointingly shies away from possible layers of complexity. Kasdan could have taken such an interesting turns here – but like the treatment of the two supporting characters that could have offered more (Olympia Dukakis’ grandmother role is reduced to butt-end comedy shticks and a bright young Makenzie Vega who plays the family’s youngest of two daughters could have given the mother and eldest daughter more emotional support than a paid psychologist.

One positive note – cinematographer Paul Cameron does a above average job at lighting day and night shots, but while the characters and neighborhood hedges might look good, but the characters come across as gorgeously bad. Even young teens might find it hard to buy the numerous lessons to be learned of not holding a grudge against your mother, or not holding the cigarette smoke in your lungs for too long. No wonder the folks at WIP dumped this off their label.

Rating 0.5 stars