An offbeat yet delightful drama.

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)
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Reviews Counted:64
Fresh:43
Rotten:21
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: 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.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for sexual content, brief nudity, some drug material and language
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Nov 27, 2009 Limited
Synopsis:
From all outward appearances, Pippa Lee (ROBIN WRIGHT PENN) leads a charmed existence. She is the devoted wife of an accomplished publisher (ALAN ARKIN) thirty years her senior, the proud mother of...
From all outward appearances, Pippa Lee (ROBIN WRIGHT PENN) leads a charmed existence. She is the devoted wife of an accomplished publisher (ALAN ARKIN) thirty years her senior, the proud mother of two grown children, and a trusted friend and confidant to all who cross her path. But as Pippa dutifully follows her husband to a new life in a staidConnecticut retirement community, her idyllic world and the persona she has built over the course of her marriage will be put to the ultimate test.
In truth, looks are deceiving, and this picture-perfect woman has seen more than her fair share of turmoil in her youth. Embarking on a bittersweet journey of self-discovery, accompanied by a new, strange and soulful acquaintance (KEANU REEVES), Pippa must now confront both her volatile past and the hidden resentment of her seemingly perfect life in order to find her true sense of self.
By turns wry, humorous, and moving, THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE presents the complex portrait of the many lives behind a single name.
Golden Globe nominee Robin Wright Penn and Academy Award® winner, Alan Arkin head an all-star cast that includes Blake Lively as the young Pippa Lee, Maria Bello as her mother, Suky Sarkissian, Keanu Reeves as Pippa’s inscrutable neighbor, Chris Nadeau, Monica Bellucci as the socialite Gigi Lee, triple Academy Award® nominee Julianne Moore as the freewheeling Kat, Academy Award® nominee and Golden Globe winner Winona Ryder as Pippa’s trusted friend, Sandra Dulles, Mike Binder as novelist Sam Shapiro and rising stars Zoe Kazan and Ryan as Grace and Ben Lee, Pippa’s young adult children.
THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE is adapted from writer-director Rebecca Miller’s novel of the same name. It is produced by Lemore Syvan from Elevation Filmworks, and Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner from Plan B Entertainment. Executive producers are Winchester Capital, Jean-Luc De Fanti, and The Salt Company partners, Cyril Mégret, Robert Bevan and Samantha Horley. --© Screen Media
Starring: Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci
Starring: Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Mike Binder
Director: Rebecca Miller
Director: Rebecca Miller
Screenwriter: Rebecca Miller
Studio: Screen Media
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Reviews for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
This is not a film about finding easy answers, just brief, often tearful moments of redemption. Miller has performed an impressive emotional balancing act, and one that's often surprisingly funny.
I was interested in the characters and situations, but I was not absorbed.
With the drama swinging from moments of melancholic contemplation to outright hysteria, it's hard to tell if this is supposed to be funny, sad, poignant or glib.
A midlife crisis unfolds with all the hushed reverence of a visit to an art gallery in The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, a wry, engaging ensemble piece that feels like a throwback to Seventies films such as A Woman Under The Influence.
A weak central performance would have sunk this film, but Robin Wright Penn makes it work.
It's well-acted, sensitive, and a tad melodramatic in its lurch from one crisis to another, but you'd forgive it a lot more for Wright Penn's magnificent portrait of unaffected goodness.
Unfocused, emotionally hollow and just mildly engaging despite exquisite cinematography and radiant performances by Robin Wright Penn, Blake Lively and Maria Bello.
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.
Pippa Lee is conceived as a portrait of a woman's long-delayed emotional blossoming, but its dopey, privileged-set fantasy winds up as obvious as crawling through Keanu's open window.
Wright is the miracle this picture needs, helping the material achieve an emotional tempo it wouldn't otherwise reach without her stellar contribution.
It might be the most purely enjoyable female driven ensemble since Fried Green Tomatoes or A League of Their Own.
Wright gives the title character a complexity and emotional shading often missing in this kind of ensemble comedy/drama.
"The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" doesn't know whether it's a drama, a comedy, or a random slice-of-life expose. Neither will you.
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.
It's all very slender stuff and very hard to care about the characters, most of whom whine rather than speak their lines. All in all, it's a life that should have stayed private.
Miller's film is a triumph. Uniformly well acted, it boasts a psychologically knowing script, clearly written by a smart, assertive human being rather than a software programme. As for the luminous Wright Penn, awards season beckons.
...a solid drama that's consistently elevated by the efforts of the various performers.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee proves that The Ballad of Jack and Rose was no fluke and that Miller can produce work just as good as the best of recent American independent cinema.
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