The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

Robin Wright stars as the tightly wound title character, and a stellar supporting cast rounds out this well-written tale of a second generation woman on the brink. Directed and written by Rebecca Miller (daughter of playwright Arthur and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis), adapted from her own novel, it did not, as far as I know, make it to a theatre in this part of the US, so it was a netflix night for us Thursday. Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) was really great--I recommend you all see it. It starred Day-Lewis, Camilla Belle, Catherine Keener playing a nice person for a change, and the boy who played one of Keener's sons, Ryan McDonald, plays one of Pippa's kids here. Wright (she has removed the Penn from her name--I don't know if her divorce from Sean is final; she was great in Forrest Gump (1994), White Oleander (2002), the barely seen ensemble movie Nine Lives (2005), What Just Happened, and others) barely smiles at all when she is onscreen (a few grimaces pass for smiles). Her role is shared with Blake Lively (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 1 & 2 (2005, 08), Accepted (2006), Gossip Girl on TV), playing Pippa as a younger woman and doing a great job of it with a lot of screen time. Maria Bello (wonderful in Permanent Midnight (1998), Coyote Ugly (2000), The Cooler (2003), A History of Violence and Thank You for Smoking (both 2005), and more) is fab as Pippa's crazy mother.

Then we have Alan Arkin (among his over 90 credits I loved him in Popi (1969), Catch-22 (1970), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), Sunshine Cleaning, and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), which won him a long overdue Oscar) as Pippa's not so patient older husband, Keanu Reeves (I'm the only movie buff I know who didn't love The Matrix (1999), but I did like River's Edge (1986), Parenthood (1989 - Reeves played a boyfriend), and Thumbsucker (2005)) perfectly playing the neighbor, Winona Ryder (nominated for Oscars for both The Age of Innocence (1993) and Little Women (1994), she has played roles I liked more: in Beetle Juice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Girl, Interrupted (1999), and, especially, Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998)), Zoe Kazan (I just wrote about her in The Exploding Girl)), Julianne Moore (wrote about her in A Single Man) with a great shag haircut, and Shirley Knight (despite her 164 credits starting in 1955, I always think of her as Hope's mother in thirtysomething--even though it was only for two episodes she got emmy nominations for both), among many. The "Who is that?" moment for me was Aunt Trish, played by Robin Weigert (lots of TV, including two episodes of Private Practice and one of United States of Tara, and a small part at the end of Synecdoche, New York).

Reviews are all over the map--see rottentomatoes (67%) for some examples of people loving it, hating it, and not caring at all. Nice piano themes by composer Michael Rohatyn (The Ballad of Jack and Rose and Miller's other two movies Angela (1995) and Personal Velocity (2002), among others), a few songs, and no soundtrack listing available anywhere. We enjoyed this and would be happy to discuss it with anyone else who sees it.