"It's a big world out there; it's messy, chaotic and it's never what you'd expect", Carter (Adam Brody) tells Lucy (Kristen Stewart) in a crucial moment of "In the land of women". Writer/director Jon Kasdan's first film is a fresh take on what I like to call 'turning points', and it can be described with the phrase quoted above, except for the chaotic part.
It would be fair to reassure the unexpected part, because the film was definitely (and is, if you care watching the trailer) incorrectly publicized, making the viewer believe something that's clearly not there. There's a big chance that teenager fans of Adam Brody (Seth Cohen, from the series "The O.C.") end up disappointed by the movie, which contains a little girl that's precocious in her way of seeing life, a girl who doesn't know what she wants and a mother who's dealing with a big issue.
When Carter comes into the life of these women, he's also going through a difficult personal moment; he's just broken up with his girlfriend and has to get over her. A writer of soft porn movie screenplays (how's that for original?), Carter decides to visit his grandmother (a hilarious Olympia Dukakis) and, while he takes care of her, probably figure out what to do with his life and maybe write what he always wanted to and never could. And there he meets Lucy and her mother Sarah (Meg Ryan in top form), and every 'turning point' gets mixed up.
What goes on between Carter and the 'women' of the title may adjust to the "messy" part of the beginning: a sort of triangle will start taking shape, but gladly this is not your everyday triangle of love and discussions. It's a triangle of mutual enrichment, where every character learns at least something from the other.
Probably if you fully analyze the situations they're going through, only one of them is logically preoccupying, but the fact is that none of these characters in a position where giving up is an option. Kasdan tries, with a human and perceptive script, to present solutions and hope to these situations. With a peaceful camera, he puts quiet conversations above everything else and that's the key of his recommendable movie's success. That doesn't mean that the rest doesn't help though.
There's something about "In the land of women" that's questionable but also gratifying and is that these 'turning points', while not so defining and irremediable, are presented as the ultimate moments of life; as the most important decisions these characters need to take. The moving score by Stephen Trask; Adam Brody's charismatic portrayal, still attached to the 'Cohen Factor'; and the perfect performance by Kristen Stewart, with all the expressions and insecurities of an adolescent, make some scenes and conversations more crucial than they may actually be.
You pay attention to those conversations, and to a couple of movie references, and to those moments when we're expecting a character to say something. Here, Kasdan evades all the common places and the clichés and those phrases we're always waiting to hear. That always has to be something good.
