IN THE LAND OF WOMEN (Jon Kasdan). 102 minutes. Opens Friday (April 20). For venues and times, see Movies, page 113. Rating: NN Rating: NNNNN
In the sibling rivalry department, writer/director Jon Kasdan‘s directorial debut shows he’s not quite on a par with brother Jake, who directed Zero Effect and Orange County. And both have a long way to go to catch father Lawrence, director of The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist and Body Heat.
Carter Webb (The O.C.’s Adam Brody) gets dumped by his actor/model girlfriend and decides to go visit his grandmother (Olympia Dukakis), who thinks she’s dying. He meets the two women across the street, Meg Ryan‘s Sarah and her daughter Lucy (Panic Room’s Kristen Stewart), neither of whom is an age-appropriate partner for the whiny 26-year-old hack writer.
Everybody’s dealin’ with some issues, the most important being Sarah’s fear of cancer, followed by Grandma’s fear of death. The least important and interesting is Carter’s decision to stop churning out soft-core porn to work on that big high school book he’s been threatening to write for a decade. Ryan’s best performance since Hurly Burly is the main reason to see this, unless you really miss The O.C.