Frank conversation about money is 'œthe last taboo,' said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. The same women who can describe their sex lives in gynecological detail over dinner blush modestly when it comes to talking about their bottom line. Writer-director Nicole Holofcener dissects this taboo—and its accompanying 'œfeminine net-worth envy'—with aplomb in her Friends With Money. It features a quartet of women, three with money, said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Frances McDormand plays Jane, a successful fashion designer simmering with rage; Catherine Keener is Christine, a screenwriter in a disintegrating marriage; and Joan Cusack is Franny, the happiest of the bunch, with the most money and the best marriage. Then there's Jennifer Aniston's Olivia, who is 'œsingle, a pothead, and a maid.' She quit her job as a schoolteacher at a tony school when the kids started teasing her about her poverty. Her friends' efforts to help her fall flat. The brilliant acting, writing, and directing add up to an 'œexquisitely calibrated hypermodern comedy of manners,' said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. It's not a stretch to call Holofcener the 'œJane Austen of West L.A.' Her characters have enough specific quirks to make them real, and thus universal. The film's point is clear: Difficulties notwithstanding, our relationships are ultimately 'œall we have that counts.'
Rating: R
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