In the Land of Women

Plot synopsis:
Carter Webb (Adam Brody) is a young, soft-core writer living in Los Angeles whose young, starlet girlfriend Sofia (Elena Anaya) breaks up with him. Carter pleads with her to stay, but she leaves.
When Carter goes to his mother's home in order to reclaim an item, he sees his mother crying in the living room. She explains that her mentally unstable mother, Phyllis (Olympia Dukakis), claims that she is dying – though her doctor cannot find anything fatal. Carter's mother tells him that she will be leaving for Michigan to take care of Phyllis. Carter offers to take his mother's place as caregiver for his grandmother, explaining that he wanted to get out of the life he was currently living and write a biographical story he has been working on for the past eleven years. Though his mother objects to this decision, he ignores her and flies to Michigan.
Outside, Carter finally arrives. He knocks on the door with a cheerful remark, and Phyllis, obviously forgetting her own grandson, slams the door on him. After a quick negotiation, she lets him inside. Phyllis reveals that she has been starving herself the past three weeks, and Carter sees that all of the food in her home has gone stale. After a few brief phone calls with his mother and his boss, Carter begins to clean up his grandmother's home.
When Carter takes out the trash, Lucy, who is smoking on her roof, watches him. He drops the trash, and Lucy begins to snicker; hearing her laughter, Carter turns toward her, and she hides in the shadow of the roof. Sarah hears the noise and comes outside with her dog, Bozo, and warmly introduces herself to Carter. They have a brief talk before Lucy's friends arrive loudly down the road and Sarah goes back inside. Lucy and Carter meet, and she asks Carter not to tell her parents that she smokes. He agrees, and takes a cigarette from her before she leaves.
The next morning, Sarah arrives at Carter's doorstep, bringing cookies and offering for him to walk with her. They walk around the neighborhood, talking about their lives. Carter eventually mentions Sofia, wondering about his love for her. Carter thinks about his relationship, and decides that it really wasn't true love. He explains that he has written love letters for Sofia, pouring out his affection in these epistles. Carter believes that the letters contain his best work.
After Sarah returns home, she sees that Carter is heartbroken and needs someone to take his mind off Sofia. She asks Lucy to ask Carter out on a date. Lucy bitterly refuses, calling it "lame" to ask someone out from across the street that she doesn't even know. Sarah's husband agrees and Sarah abruptly leaves the room, frustrated. She goes to her bathroom, filling a small cup of medicine to subdue her pain. Her husband follows her, trying to assuage the situation by insisting that Lucy will apologize and ask Carter on a date.
The next day, Carter decides to go on a run. While running, he has flashbacks of all the memorable times he had with Sofia: their meeting, their first kiss, and so on, until it finally leads to the breakup. When she utters the word "goodbye" once more, Carter runs into a tree and passes out. When he wakes up, he sees Lucy standing over him. She gives him a ride home and then asks him out. Carter tells her to ask her parents if they would allow her to take him out on a school night, as they normally would not. Lucy, confused, agrees, and goes back inside.
Meanwhile, Paige (Makenzie Vega) and Lucy (Kristen Stewart) Hardwicke, who live across the street from Phyllis, are returning from school. Lucy's mother, Sarah (Meg Ryan), calls Lucy to the kitchen. She hesitantly tells Lucy that she has found a lump in her breast, a possible sign of breast cancer, and is to see a doctor in the coming days. Lucy, shocked, wants to come with her mother when she receives her results, but Sarah quickly refuses.
Shortly thereafter, Sarah invites Carter on another walk. This time, she leads him into a small patch of forest. She admits that her husband is having an affair and that she does not love him – at least not the way Carter loved Sofia. They hug and leave to run errands together. They share an awkward moment of both having something to say to the other; Carter begins with the declaration that Sarah's husband is "out of his mind". Sarah smiles, and dismisses what she has to say. Eventually, the two deepen their friendship and later, when she tells him she is sick, they kiss each other.
Carter also goes to the movies with Lucy and Paige. He finds out that Sofia has been dating Colin Farrell. Afterward, Lucy brings Carter to a football field because he was curious about the typical high school experience. There she confesses that she is sort of dating the high school quarterback Gabe, who is arrogant and cocky, but that they have not kissed yet. They also talk about Gabe's best friend Eric who seems to be the opposite of Gabe; soft and shy. She also confesses that she knows her father is having an affair, but believes her mother does not know.
She claims to be more upset with her mother than her father because her mother is cold and more interested in her image than the truth. Lucy later finds out that Gabe could not wait for Lucy and hooked up with her best friend. She convinces Carter to come to a party with her because he is older and mysterious. During the party, Gabe tries to fight Carter, but Eric steps in saying that Gabe is the one who screwed up. After the party, Carter and Lucy share a kiss which Sarah sees. She tells Carter to leave Lucy alone and to never speak to them again. Afterwards, he slips her a letter.
Lucy goes to see Carter who tells her that he is not the guy for her and that if she thought about it, she would realize that she would know who he is. Sarah gets her cancer treatments and it is revealed that everything will be all right. Sarah and Lucy talk and start to heal their relationship. As Lucy drives home from the hospital, she stops to see Eric who she realizes is the guy Carter was referring to. Sarah finally reads Carter's letter which, though similar to a love letter, winds up being more of a "thank you" note.
Carter comes downstairs to find his grandmother has died but does not immediately call the hospital. Instead, he goes outside for some air and meets up with Sarah. She apologizes and they are able to end their friendship on good terms.
The story closes with Carter back in LA at the diner where Sofia broke up with him. He is writing, presumably a script, about his grandmother. He talks to the waitress and seems to be getting on with his life without Sofia.

Tags: romantic, flashback

Review:
This film is getting a 9 based soley on the completely misleading promotion.I went into this expecting a love story between Carter Webb (Adam Brody) and Lucy Hardwicke (Kristen Stewart).
So he decides to go to Michigan to live with his grandmother (who is by far the best and most interesting character) and ends up becoming really close to the women across the street.While it was moving, touching, and all that good stuff, I left the theater with one thought in my mind.
While still fantastic, you should expect a film about real people (with many flaws and weaknesses that humans have, like the inability to to stand up for themselves) not a movie like "She's All That" where the two young, good-looking people fall in love with an epic romance.That is not this film.
More than anything, I think Kasdan touchingly pleads for compassion in our relationships that is decent and forgiving.Carter Webb (Brody) is a soft core erotica writer, who is dating beautiful movie star Sofia (gorgeous Elena Anaya).
Part of the time it is quirky film e.g. soft-core porn writing is the occupation of the main character, his grandmother is insane in a comedic way but not really funny in any sense, 10 year old girl who is very sophisticated and does yoga etc.
He is a talent to watch.Soft porn writer Carter Webb (Adam Brody in a very fine performance) lives in Los Angeles near his depressed mother (JoBeth Williams) and has just been dumped by his actress girlfriend Sofia Buñuel (Elena Anaya).
Once in picturesque Michigan Carter deals with his lovable but eccentric grandma and meets the across the street neighbors - mother Sarah (Meg Ryan in fine form), daughters Lucy (Kristin Stewart) and the younger Paige (Makenzie Vega), and errant husband Nelson (Clark Gregg).
Jon Kasdan (son of filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan) makes a most auspicious directorial debut with "In the Land of Women," an utterly charming and winning indie comedy/drama marked by interesting characters, complex relationships and delightful performances by a first-rate cast.When his fashion-model/actress girlfriend dumps him without warning, a "soft-erotica" writer by the name of Carter Webb leaves his home in L.A. to spend time with his eccentric grandmother in suburban Michigan.
A 26-year old who hasn't been able to grab a hold of anything meaningful in his life thus far, Carter finds his world becoming even more complicated when he makes the acquaintance of a mother and daughter who live across the street from where he's staying.The beauty of Kasdan's screenplay is that we never know where the story is going to take us at any given moment.
But it is Meg Ryan as Sarah Hardwicke, the full-time housewife and mother, who truly excels in her role, turning a potentially two-dimensional character into a multi-faceted woman of surprising depth and emotion.
Finally, Olympia Dukakis seems to be having the time of her life playing an attention-seeking, doddering old woman who may not be quite as out of it as she wants others to believe she is.As director, Kasdan takes full advantage of the bucolic Michigan setting (though it is remarkably lush and green for October), as Carter and Sarah take long, leisurely strolls around the neighborhood, getting to know one another and establishing a lasting relationship.Like them, the movie is not afraid to take its time laying out its storyline and revealing the hearts of its characters.
In the Land of Women is an interesting look into the lives of several people who live in a small Michigan suburb.Carter (Adam Brody), who happens to write scripts for pornos, has just been dumped by his famous actress/model girlfriend, and decides to go live with his grandmother in Michigan to get over it.
It ultimately falls so horribly short of both it leaves you wondering what genre it is supposed to fit in.In the Land of Women is a story about a young porn screenwriter (Adam Brody) from LA who has just been dumped by his actress/model girlfriend.
What continues from there is a brief melodrama of Adam Brody struggling with feelings for Meg Ryan, Lucy, and his ex-girlfriend.The script had two major problems, the first being there was almost zero character development.
The director definitely did not help, or make use of the wonderful cast he had.The acting was good, but because of the poor character development and script; it hurt the performance put out by Adam Brody and Kristen Stewart.
It's unfortunate that some solid acting performances were wasted on a terribly written story, IMHO...There was very little continuity and it was utterly implausible some of the exchanges between characters...Came off like a bad episode of the OC or some other network 'drama'/soap...Meg Ryan isn't bad but we never understand how she suddenly interacts with a stranger nevermind how easily she reveals so much about herself...Same applies to the daughter played by Kristen Stewart whose talents seem wasted to me in this film...The father in this movie might as well not have been in the film as he was never present even when he was on screen...Terribly miscast, IMHO...The youngest daughter seemed to be a solid actor as well...Loved seeing Olympia Dukakis in her role, funny as always.
Not only is there no character development but the plot is ludicrous is an outrageous and mortifying attempt to grab watchers with horribly executed plot twists that did nothing but ruin any chance at the movie having any sense of taste or quality whatsoever...Im not sure what made me more sick, the fact the guy was crying through half the movie, a brutally ignorantly written script, or the terrible use of dramatization to emphasize just about every god damn thing that happened in the movie whether its petting a dog, or talking to a waitress...I cannot even begin to explain the clichés within the movie and how poorly executed they were, whether its long walks that "touchingly" lead the main character to mess around with the wife and mother in a family, the writer's attempt to surprise the watchers failed MISERABLY when the daughter proceeds to make out with Adam Brody and completely take a plummet with the plot into the utter depths of hell, the grandmother dies?
oh my god i couldn't have foreseen that, wait no it was an obvious expectation, but of course is over dramatized, and the daughter with amazing artistic abilities painting made me want to shoot myself...including a sad attempt at a happy cheesy lame ending and finishing of a horrible drastically scarring plot..oh and the young girl falls for a kid who's acting could only be compared to the acting quality of a half dead emu, horribly awkward and it just makes you want to look away..
I love Meg Ryan films, but this was probably the first time I found myself pitying her character, and I saw her as almost weak and unfortunate.This movie did have its high points, I loved seeing the interacting between Webb and the younger Hardwicke girls on their "date," and some other moments between Carter and his grandmother.Yet, was totally let down after watching Lucy and Carter's "relationship develop." I suppose that this movie wasn't totally supposed to be about the relationships between Carter and Sarah, and Carter and Lucy, but more about the growth of the mother/daughter relationship, as I came to learn later.I thought the hype for this movie was overrated, and I was actually let down by some of it, but I do see that Adam Brody has a lot to offer in the future, and I can see him doing great projects now that he seen more in the movie capacity..
Brody is an appealing actor and can be razor-sharp when given an appropriately sized role like his smarmy turn as a Hollywood studio assistant in 2006's "Thank You for Smoking", but Kasdan makes him a mopey presence here with little latitude for revealing any emotional complexity.He plays Carter Webb, a 26-year old LA-based writer who specializes in soft porn (a plot point that isn't explored too much).
"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".
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.
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.
While there he touches the lives of the Hardwicke women, Sarah, the mother, Lucy, the eldest daughter, and Paige, the youngest.I think what I love most about this movie is how it's not a conventional romantic comedy.
Meg Ryan also does wonderfully as the mother, as well as Adam Brody as the main character, Carter.I would suggest searching for this movie on cable, record it, and give it a try when you have a quiet moment.
Carter Webb (Adam Brody), a young, attractive writer of softcore porn films, is at a restaurant one day when his equally young and famous girlfriend Sofia (Elena Anaya) reveals that she no long wants to see him, sending his life into an utter tailspin.
Across the street from Phyllis are three women: a single mother named Sarah (Meg Ryan), who is potentially suffering from breast cancer, and her two college-age daughters Paige and Lucy (Makenzie Vega and Kristen Stewart).Carter's plan for a quiet, restful vacation becomes disrupted when he realizes that as long as he's in Michigan, his stay will be dominated by females, particularly Lucy, whom he takes a liking to early on in his stay.
Despite this, Carter winds up connecting with the whole family, discovering Sarah's potentially cancerous breast lump and realizing that suffering is often the precursor to finding comfort in life and one's situation.This is the story of In the Land of Women, the first cinematic effort by Jon Kasdan, who would later go on to write and direct the incredibly natural and almost poetic romantic comedy The First Time.
However, especially with this genre, which often has its writer/director walking on eggshells throughout the entire project, the bare basics for storytelling isn't going to cut it.Starring: Adam Brody, Meg Ryan, Kristen Stewart, Makenzie Vega, Olympia Dukakis, and Elena Anaya.
the cast is perfect - fragile Adam Brody , delicate performance , rich in nuances ,of Meg Ryan, Kristen Steward in a nice role and admirable Olympia Dukakis as grandmother, key - character for a movie about vanitas vanitatum.about real things as result of self definition.
In the Land of Women its a great little movie.I say little because it doesn't deal with anything too serious or profound, its just about human relationships,family dynamics and people in general, which happens to be my favorite kind of movie.Adam Brody plays Carter,a young soft-core porn writer who after a break-up with a famous actress uses his grandmother poor health state as an excuse to get away from L.A. and everything he knows in hopes of healing his broken heart and find some peace.He moves to suburban Detroit to take care of her and in the process he meets the Hardwicke family who lives across the street from his grandmother's house.
First he bonds with the mother(Meg Ryan), and then with the daughter(Kristin Stewart) making an impact in in their lives and in the end he changes his own life as well.This charming independent movie is about ordinary people and the everyday life and some of the struggles and pains people go trough.Adam Brody was great although he always seems to be playing his character,Seth, from The O.C. I didn't mind it because it worked but I wonder if he's capable of doing something completely different,same thing goes to Kristin Stewart,she did a terrific job but she played once again an insecure and somewhat damaged character.
I wish that I could say that this is a cute piece of whimsy, a moving commentary upon the perils of love, life, family, and coming to terms with the knowledge that we all must, eventually, die - some sooner than others.Except this movie was spoiled for me first and foremost by Meg Ryan's casting as Sarah, Mom to Lucy(the radiant Kristen Stewart), the potential love interest for Carter(the capable Adam Brody, reprising his usual character), who has returned to his Grandmother's home after years living in Los Angeles, to run away from a bad break up with his movie star girlfriend, Sofia.
First, her role is at the emotional heart of the film, and she never captures those moments.This might be caused, and is certainly contributed to, by the second problem - her freakishness makes it impossible to fully commit to the fictional world, because every time she is on camera, the only reaction possible is "Ohmigawd - that's freaky!", which reminds us we are watching Meg Ryan, not Sarah.If the movie had overcome this disaster, would it have worked?
The publicity of In the Land of Women makes this movies seems as a typical Hollywood romance,but the film is not like that.I still do not know if that's good or bad.Director Jon Kasdan(do not confuse him with Jake Kasdan,director of the very fun movie Orange County-both are sons of acclaimed director and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan)could not find a solid structure for this movie which is a collection of nice scenes and emotive moments but without connexion,structure or satisfactory resolution.The cast is well chosen on their characters:Adam Brody is very fine as the main character,Meg Ryan shows conviction in her role,Kristen Stewart managed to combine juvenile immaturity with intelligence and Mackenzie Vega is also pretty good on her role.The script does not know what to do after introducing the characters.For one sight,I like that Kasdan did not choose the easy way to show a romance but,for the other sight,the absence of a narrative focus and the relationship between the characters are irrelevant.The moments of emotional connexion between them are good but they do not feel as a part of a process.They simply exist.If that was a creative decision from the director,I imagine his intention was to have a completely natural and realistic tone.After all,life is not divided on chapters and the emotional evolution of the characters is similar than in the real life:unpredictable and not always nice.But,in the context of a movie,I think the spectator has to feel the direction of the story.I enjoyed the separated parts of In the Land of Women:they are fun and nice.But the whole is empty and not too satisfactory.I recommend In the Land of Women because it's fun and it never bores.But the film is mediocre..
maybe it was the life-threatening struggle of breast cancer, struggle to bring yourself to write a genuine honest letter and script, or come to your senses of about which nice person to trust, Brody, Ryan, and Stewart's characters were offered a chance for redemption.I felt that the softcore porn was a good symbol of the not beautiful and dishonest written projection this guy had on women which nicely evolved to the "beautiful thank you" and "Pandy: the unlovable, self destructive bear", Even though the acting was good, the messages and situations were almost too forced and made it unbelievable.Overall, this movie touched on many stages of our life where we may be tempted to run away into disillusion.
However, it's kind of cool to finally be surprised in a movie, unlike the normal predictableness that has become Hollywood.Adam Brody did an extremely exceptional job of playing a guy that didn't know where he was going in life, in the meantime taking care of his grandma, who was convinced she was dieing.
It's disappointing to me to see such a great film as In The Land of Women go so unnoticed when compared to other films out right now.This movie is a superb story about a man, Carter Webb (Adam Brody) who gets dumped and moves in with his grandmother (who thinks she's dying).
(Cancer: can a story like this go anywhere unsentimental with that?)From his weepy intro when he gets the gate from Sophia in a diner, Carter is nothing but a teddy bear, so it's appropriate that the novel he finally completes has "teddy bear" in the title.The "land of women" in question consists of Ryan and her character's two daughters, an inarticulate, put-upon teenager (Lucy: Kristen Stewart) and a prematurely wise younger sister (Paige: Makenzie Vega).
Directed and written by Jon Kasden, The Land Before Time -- excuse me, got my movies confused -- In the Land of Women stars Adam Brody as Carter Webb, a softcore-porn writer who, after an emotional break-up with his model girlfriend Sofia(Elena Anaya), decides to move in with his grandmother (Olypia Dukakis), an aging woman who thinks she's dying.
Also a movie that brought him, Meg Ryan and Kristen Stewart all together is worth a shot to me.The plot is simple, but it's beautiful to see the way people change and react over different problems in life, like love, illness and death.
I do not watch commercial TV so I have not seen these actors in any roles that I remember.Another SPOILER alert, I see no reason for Meg Ryan's character to develop breast cancer, these scenes were not needed.Adam Brody's character is supposed to be a soft porn writer, this point is not mentioned again.The running time is 92 slow minutes.The area in the Midwest where this was filmed looks nice & thats about the best thing I can say about the movieratings ** (out of 4) 59 points (out of 100) IMDb 5 (out of 10)_.