Themes: Mothers and Daughters, Sibling Relationships, Adoption
Main Cast: Catherine Keener, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer, Raven Goodwin, Jake Gyllenhaal
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Nicole Holofcener, writer/director of the critically acclaimed Walking and Talking, shifts her focus from New York to Los Angeles for her second feature, Lovely & Amazing. Jane Marks (Brenda Blethyn of Secrets and Lies) is a middle-aged woman who's about to undergo liposuction. She has three daughters. Michelle (Catherine Keener) is a cynical, self-involved, would-be artist in an unhappy marriage. Elizabeth is a struggling actress who constantly takes in stray dogs. Her insecurities about her attractiveness come to the fore when she blows a screen test with a big movie star, Kevin (Dermot Mulroney). The youngest of the Marks sisters, Annie (Raven Goodwin), is an overweight eight-year-old African-American girl whose birth mother was an addict. Jane has adopted Annie, and is determined to provide her with a better life. Jane has a crush on her suave surgeon (Michael Nouri of Flashdance), but her family is thrown into chaos when complications arise during her outpatient procedure, and she's forced to stay in the hospital. Michelle, pressured by her husband (Clark Gregg) to take some financial responsibility for raising their young daughter, eventually gets a part-time job working in a one-hour photo booth, where she meets Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), a misfit teen who awkwardly flirts with her. Elizabeth's boyfriend, Paul (James LeGros), who seems to disapprove of the entertainment industry, leaves her. Annie eats compulsively and misbehaves. When the family is faced with a series of crises, relationship patterns that had solidified over the years subtly begin to change. A festival favorite, Lovely & Amazing has been shown at the 2001 Telluride Film Festival, the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, and the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Fans of Nicole Holofcener's wry urban comedy Walking and Talking will be ready for the emotional honesty and observational wit of her follow-up, Lovely & Amazing, but they may not be prepared for the film's nearly relentless downbeat tone. Not that Walking and Talking didn't have its painful and awkward moments, but it was feel-good escapism by comparison. As in the earlier film, Holofcener has assembled a gifted ensemble of actors, led by Catherine Keener. Adding their considerable talents are Brenda Blethyn, Jake Gyllenhaal, and James LeGros. Holofcener has also cast a refreshingly naturalistic child actor, Raven Goodwin, as the adopted young daughter, the troubled Annie. As exemplified by her character, Holofcener is exploring more wide-ranging themes here than the enjoyable navel-gazing of her debut. Delving boldly and uncompromisingly into issues of race and body image, Holofcener manages to find the mordant humor in a lot of unpleasant situations. Michelle isn't nearly as self-aware or likeable as the character Keener played in Walking and Talking. She's an edgy, sarcastic, self-involved oddball, and manages to undergo a little growth over the course of the film. Highlights of Lovely & Amazing include a memorably creepy, sad, and funny scene in which the self-critical Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) stands naked before Kevin McCabe (Dermot Mulroney), a successful actor whom she barely knows, and demands that he give her a completely honest critique of her body. There's the moment when Annie expresses her wish to "tear off" her skin, in order to be more like her adoptive mother. There's an acute honesty to these and other, similar scenes which many will find off-putting. The dysfunctional Marks family does grow a little closer as the film progresses, and the film's honesty, humor, and engaging performances make the uncomfortable subject matter easier to bear. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
The story focuses on Jane Marks, her adult daughters Michelle and Elizabeth, and her pre-teen adopted African American daughter Annie, each of whom allows her personal insecurities to affect her life. Jane, longing to look younger and thinner, opts for liposuction, with near tragic results. When Michelle's artistic talents fail to produce any income for her family, much to the dismay of her husband Bill, she takes a job as a one-hour photo developer and finds herself falling for the attention of her teenaged co-worker Jordan. Aspiring actress Elizabeth, who bestows upon stray dogs the affection she finds difficult to offer her boyfriend Paul, questions her appeal when she's rejected for a role based on her looks, and she seeks reassurance from film heartthrob Kevin McCabe. Overweight Annie tries to fit in better with her white adopted family by having her hair straightened by black Big Sister volunteer Lorraine, who Jane hopes will put the young girl in touch with her heritage.
In its widest release, the film played on only 175 screens in the US. It grossed $4,210,379 domestically and $485,402 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $4,695,781 [1].
In his review in the New York Times, Stephen Holden said, "As smart and observant as it is, Lovely and Amazing doesn't really go anywhere. Ms. Holofcener's sharp, witty dialogue shows an ear acutely tuned to the edgy, competitive nuances of contemporary banter, and the movie expertly evokes the rivalry percolating just below the surface of the Markses' relationships. But once family members have weathered their personal crises, little seems to have changed." [2]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed, "Here is a movie that knows its women, listens to them, doesn't give them a pass, allows them to be real: It's a rebuke to the shallow Ya-Ya Sisterhood." [3]
In Variety, Todd McCarthy said, "Engaging, intermittently insightful but too glib to wring full value out of its subject matter, this brightly performed study of an extended family of females has enough going for it to quickly graduate from the fest circuit to a respectable career in specialized release . . . [it] evinces keen antenna for (mostly) female foibles, a good ear for dialogue, talent for directing thesps and a clean, unfussy visual style." [4]
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "Nicole Holofcener throws a bunch of issues on the table and takes time to linger over them, without worrying much about where her story's going or even if she has one. The result is a gutsy little picture and a nice slice of life." [5]
In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers opined, "In this painfully funny and touching look at the vanities and insecurities that a mother can pass on to her daughters in the name of love, writer-director Nicole Holofcener does a chick flick right . . . Holofcener's film feels untidily honest. It's true to life, not to the Hollywood version." [6]
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said, "Like the best of personal, independent cinema . . . it is both marvelously observed and completely individual. There is no film like this film, and that is something you don't hear every day . . . it's so accurate about how people attempt meaningful emotional connections in an uncaring world of self-involvement, obtuseness and free-floating insecurity that it ought to be put in a time capsule." [7]
