In the Land of Women

I got a chance to see In the Land of Women last Sunday. I was in a bit of a strange mood and it was just the thing I needed. I enjoyed it very much.

Written and directed by Jon Kasdan and starring cute as a button Adam Brody (The O.C.), the film is about a young man recently dumped by his movie star girlfriend, Sofia (Elena Anaya). Upset and depressed, Carter (Brody), an L.A. script writer, decides to go stay with his elderly, slightly off kilter grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) in surburban Detroit. He soon meets his grandmother's neighbour across the street, Sarah (Meg Ryan). They begin taking walks together where they open up about things they don't discuss with other people in their lives. Carter opens up about his recent breakup and Sarah talks about her fears, medical problems and her husband's infidelity. Carter looks forward to his time with Sarah and feels an attraction to her. Sarah encourages her teenage daughter, Lucy (Kristen Stewart), to spend time with Carter to get him out of his grandmother's house once in awhile.


The poster and trailer are a little misleading, but I won't go into a lot of detail about that so as not to spoil the film. I also won't go much else into plot because the plot wasn't the interesting thing for me. It was the relationships between the characters and what they did for each other. Carter brought some fire back to Sarah that she had thought she'd lost upon domestication. Sarah made Carter see the beauty in life and brought him out of his funk. Carter made Lucy see her mother differently than she had before and he also became closer to his grandmother. By the end of the film, all of the characters have had some transformation. One thing I will give away is that Carter writes Sarah a sweet letter, the kind she says she always wished she got, but never did. He thanks her for some things (which I will not give away). This spoke to me.


The film was better than I expected, but I didn't know what to expect, I just wanted to see a film and it was between this one and Kickin It Old Skool. I was pleasantly surprised and hope to hear/see more from Jon Kasdan. There were some really great quotes, but since I saw this a week ago and it's not fresh in my memory, can't remember them word for word. The memorable quote section for this movie is also lacking, so I will put one that is there that got some giggles in the trailer. I will post a different one if I remember or they put more up on the IMDB page.

Carter: I pride myself on being this great listener, but whenever I meet somebody new I find I'm doing all the talking.
Sarah: Maybe you're not really such a great listener.
Carter: Hmm?
Sarah: Maybe you're not such a great listener.
Carter: No that's not it, I'm a great listener.

More ramblings to come......