Friends with Money

What a rare delight - to see four talented actresses rising to the challenge of such a smart script. With each additional interesting project that she accepts, Jennifer Aniston edges away from the baggage of that daft and shallow TV show upon which she built her name. Frances McDormand, as a wife undergoing an existential crisis, is grittily beautiful and 100% believable.

I doubt whether most twenty-somethings will find much with which to connect in this film; in fact the message boards seem to indicate that they're hankering for a 'plot' ("Wot? No murder?"). Having said that, younger viewers with decent attention spans whose tastes tend toward more stimulating, 'art house' fare, might well feel rewarded.

The movie's characters are real people with real issues; issues which aren't necessarily wrapped up neatly and tied with a bow by the end of the movie, as is the case in most sitcoms. Their issues are recognisably human, and not the standard, manufactured, Politically Correct ones, such as those didactic "gender issues" that are so frequently wheeled out in mainstream Hollywood movies. (How dull that could've been...)

Furthermore, rather than serve up a neat 'Beginning, Middle & End', the film gives us a sense that the characters' lives and issues continue beyond the scope of the film, and that we've simply been privy to a slice of their timeline.

The dialogue, which crackles like a pine-cone in a blazing fire, is also worthy of being singled out for praise. While the film isn't a comedy, it boasts some wicked, laugh-out-loud lines. This is a beautiful, sad, funny, and engaging drama for discerning audiences. Bravo, Nicole Holofcener!

I want to like the films Nicole Holofcener directs, because I feel that she makes sensitive, intelligent films about women from a woman's point of view, and that's a feat mainstream Hollywood has certainly never been adept at achieving.

But "Friends with Money" is a tiresome movie that goes nowhere, populated with characters we learn next to nothing about behaving in ways that drive us crazy. Jennifer Aniston has the central role as a young woman who used to be a teacher and now cleans houses for a living, when she's not obsessing over a former boyfriend or letting her current boyfriend walk all over her. Aniston's character is the kind that we really need to understand if we're to feel any sympathy for; Holofcener manages to make us frustrated with her but little more.

A trio of fine actresses (Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, and Joan Cusack) play Aniston's affluent, disagreeable friends. Their stories consist of scene after scene of them being unpleasant in a variety of situations, the movie settling into a pounding monotony that makes its 90 minute running time feel much longer. It doesn't make any sense at all that these three would still be friends with Aniston, yet at the same time, I couldn't wholly believe McDormand or Keener as rich bitch socialites either. The only point the movie seems to make is that money and affluence don't bring one happiness or fulfillment, a conclusion I already came to long ago, so the film has virtually nothing to say to me.

A dull movie that feels more like an outline than an actual film.

Grade: D+

"Friends with Money" is Americana the sit-com way: it is about older, (much) more monied, West Coast clones of TV's loathsome "Friends." Although it appears a slow-mo imitation of Woody Allen at his talkiest, the film does well. The reason: a quartet of actresses having a ball.

Nicole Holofcener's script and direction are merely OK: a medium-funny, not very insightful soap about three couples and a single woman (Jennifer Anniston), who is younger than her six friends, jobless, aimless, sloppy and rather annoying. Of the three husbands, only Simon McBurney is outstanding, but he really is, the English actor turning in a wonderful performance as a super-nice metrosexual.

Anniston does her best, which here works better than in any of her other roles. But "Friends with Money" is worth seeing because of - in order - Frances McDormand's huge star turn, with her unsuppressed rage turning into petty, ordinary rudeness; Catherine Keener, sleepwalking through affluence; and Joan Cusack, as a nice mega-rich woman without guilt or troubling thoughts.

The pace is glacial and steady; after a while, the film settles into a pleasant, moderately quirky flow, until a sudden and inconclusive end. Through it all, performances are to be enjoyed, and in McDormand's case, treasured. Never again will you be able go without washing your hair and not think of Frances McDormand.

I would watch it weekly without fail. The characters are 3D, their lives interesting, the dialog graceful and funny...so why was I so disappointed by and frustrated with this movie? Because there just needed to be more. The short running time compacts all the problems and situations down to bare essentials, and there is too much going on for this film to skim across the surface the way it does. I guess the point is to show us a snapshot of these people at a very specific point in their lives, and then move on. The more-than-able cast certainly helps--particularly Frances McDormand, who can do more with just her eyes and mouth than most actors can with a page of script (just watch the way she looks at everything around her--especially other people). And while I am a huge fan of 70s-style non-endings, I admit that this movie's abrupt stop (after a very convenient and pat wrap-up) left me with an "Eh" kind of feeling. While it is certainly watchable and interesting AS FAR AS IT GOES, this movie is no "Walking and Talking." Have you seen that movie? "W and T" is absolutely brilliant, another small portrait of long-time female friends, but because it narrows its scope to two characters in a particular situation (one's wedding), it achieves all the depth and poignancy and hilarity that "Friends with Money" lacks. If "F w/ M" were a TV series, if it fully explored the characters' lives and situations in some depth and detail, I'd be its #1 fan. Maybe the DVD will include deleted scenes (say about 40 or 50) and the movie will finally feel complete.

Not only is this not a groundbreaking film, it's not a particularly pleasant, or enjoyable one either. It centers around a group of early 40s-somethings who hate their lives, their spouses and their place in the world. The casting of Aniston is strange, as she is easily 10 years younger then her circle of friends.

While you'd think that the film is trying to state "happiness has nothing to do with how much money you have", the opposite appears to be true as the more elevated couples do have less problems. And, if fact, all of Aniston's problems are seemingly solved when she manages to snag a wealthy (albeit slacker) guy herself. While the three married couples do have children, they don't add anything to the story, as they seem more like convenient accessories than meaningful relations. While that may be a creative choice, the fact that it runs across all three couples identically makes me inclined to believe it's just sloppy, two-dimensional screen writing. None of the story lines are brought full circle and the entire exercise feels like a long death march towards irrelevance. Several interesting notions are addressed, but none closely examined or fully developed. While there are poignant moments and some nice creative decisions (i.e. allowing the actors to look their age), this genre has been mined before to better results (i.e. "Grand Canyon").