Smug unmarrieds … Keanu Reeves and Robin Wright Penn in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Rebecca Miller's 2008 novel of the same name provides the recipe for this hugely overegged pudding of a film, adapted and directed by the author.
- The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
- Release: 2009
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): 15
- Runtime: 93 mins
- Directors: Rebecca Miller
- Cast: Alan Arkin, Blake Lively, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Robin Wright Penn, Winona Ryder
It's an indulgent, complacent family comedy-drama, for which Miller has mobilised a starry cast. An ageing publisher, crustily played by Alan Arkin, is experiencing subtle new strains of domestic tension with his beautiful, enigmatic second wife Pippa: this is a nice, poised performance from Robin Wright Penn. A series of voiceover-driven flashbacks disclose her own wild-child past, which she repudiated on getting married in penance for an awful secret guilt.
Wright Penn's dissatisfaction propels her to an affair with a funky neighbour: a heart-sinkingly blank, affectless performance from Keanu Reeves, who has never looked more lobotomised on screen. None of the characters is seeing a shrink, but this story surely has its origins in therapy. A film that is very pleased with itself.
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