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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

tomatometer

67

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 73
Fresh: 49 | Rotten: 24

Reverential and offbeat, the road trip film Private lives of Pippa Lee takes emotional detours and is elevated by great performances, particularly that of Robin Wright-Penn.

53

Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 7

Reverential and offbeat, the road trip film Private lives of Pippa Lee takes emotional detours and is elevated by great performances, particularly that of Robin Wright-Penn.

audience

50

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 16,925

My Rating

Movie Info

Rebecca Miller (The Ballad of Jack & Rose) adapts her own novel with this comedy drama about a woman who begins a second life after her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Pippa Lee (Robin Wright) is the loving mother of two grown children, and the wife of successful publisher Herb (Alan Arkin). Despite the fact that she's 30 years Herb's junior, Pippa and her husband have never fallen short on things to talk about. She's always enjoyed the hustle and bustle of New York, but after Herb

R, 1 hr. 40 min.

Drama, Comedy

Rebecca Miller

Mar 2, 2010

Screen Media Films

Cast

All Critics (74) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (24) | DVD (1)

As a woman under the influence of everyone but herself, Pippa often feels lost when she's on her own - a blank slate with no one holding a chalk - Robin Wright Penn allows us to get to know a character who still doesn't really know herself.

July 4, 2010 Full Review Source: NPR | Comment
NPR
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The movie has the busy-aimless feeling of a cocktail party rather than a rigorously constructed drama. Interesting people drift through, anecdotes are shared, attention shifts here and there, and abruptly it's time to go.

January 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A superb performance by Robin Wright Penn illuminates Rebecca Miller's intelligent and revealing look at the inner wild child beneath a 50-ish Connecticut matron.

January 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Film.com | Comment
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Awkward in ways both intended and not.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

By turns antic, frantic, and dull, Pippa Lee is unconvincing -- emotionally, dramatically, filmically.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | Comment
Christian Science Monitor
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Miller has created a witty satire about society and relationships that is both funny and heartbreaking, delivered by a first-rate cast.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's a deliberate quality to the storytelling that makes the movie drag in many scenes; and yet, numerous characters flit by that we don't have time to really meet.

February 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Miami Herald | Comment
Miami Herald

... for once in a [Rebecca] Miller film, the chuckles are generally intentional ...

February 5, 2010 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | Comment
Sacramento News & Review

Penn is such an intelligent performer that it's easy for us to believe everyone else in the film sees a different side -- a different life -- of the enigmatic Pippa Lee -- and that there are still many other sides to this fascinating character...

January 22, 2010 Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | Comment
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Robin Wright Penn gives an award-caliber performance in the title role of a woman trying to find her place in the scheme of things after moving with her older husband to a retirement village in suburban Connecticut.

December 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

All the midnight bulimic binges, suicide attempts, sleepwalking, marital chicanery, and little pills don't mean a thing compared to the thrill of being a middle-aged woman sneaking through the bedroom window like a teenager in heat.

December 15, 2009 Full Review Source: East Bay Express | Comment
East Bay Express

Just as The Twilight Saga: New Moon taps into to the sexual yearnings and psychic disturbances of pubescent girls, so does The Private Lives of Pippa Lee for the perimenopausal crowd.

December 12, 2009 Full Review Source: culturevulture.net | Comment
culturevulture.net

The movie holds your interest with a series of loosely connected episodes, but leaves you in a frozen and distant state.

December 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum | Comment

Provides a nice role for Robin Wright Penn, but it's a film in search of a tone.

December 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

Perhaps "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" might have been a stronger film had it focused on a single private life instead of a cornucopia of them.

December 11, 2009 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

The results are honorable but not terribly interesting.

December 11, 2009 Comment
Kansas City Star

Penn is the best thing about the movie.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | Comment
Jam! Movies
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Very good movie which, I have to admit, I sat there bored through for the first 40 minutes. It was only when it got to the scene with the first wife that I started to understand the events that had shaped this dull-on-the- surface married woman. Blake Lively is excellent as the younger Pippa, as is Robin Wright as the

January 22, 2012
romy861

Super Reviewer

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee works as an involving high-end soap, the strong performances, writing and fractured chronology easing us past the more melodramatic twists. Robin Wright performs naturally and makes her character hold more depth and presence then was imaginable. And Blake Lively performs her part so

June 11, 2009
deano
Dean McKenna

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Pippa Lee (DE)
  • Les vies privées de Pippa Lee (FR)
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