The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Review By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: C

Under the direction of Rebecca Miller, and working from a screenplay based on her novel of the same name, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is essentially the story of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. While it has the potential to be an emotionally complex look at the inner-workings of 50-year-old woman’s mind, and how her past shaped her into the woman she is today, Pippa mostly sleepwalks through the good stuff. And I say that literally, as well as figuratively. As the perfect life she’s built for herself begins to unravel, Pippa’s stress manifests itself during bouts of sleepwalking in which she smokes cigarettes and eats desserts without realizing it.

So how exactly did Pippa (Robin Wright Penn) become this bundle of anxiety? On the outside, she seems to be leading a serene existence. She’s the doting wife of a successful – and much older – publisher (Alan Arkin), the mother of two grown children and dinner-party host extraordinaire. But after she moves to a quiet Connecticut retirement community following her husband’s heart attack, the bleak reminders of mortality all around her start drudging up memories from her past.

The film periodically flashes back to Pippa’s wild youth, but it’s still not entirely clear how she went from being a troubled young girl to a blank-staring, soft-spoken Stepford wife. The back and forth between the two different “lives” just doesn’t quite gel. That’s no fault of Blake Lively’s though, who plays the younger Pippa Lee (Nee Sarkissian) with abandon. She proves she’s more than just a pretty, blond Gossip target. And through the flashbacks we also get a glimpse of the root of Pippa’s issues – her pill-addicted manic-depressive mother, Suky (played with alternating joie de vivre and desperation by Maria Bello).

The snapshots of the past lend this film its only bit of spark. While I generally love Robin Wright Penn (especially in Forrest Gump and The Princess Bride), her portrayal of the adult Pippa seems almost apathetic. I understand that through the years, Pippa has lost most of her original spunk (and living a “good” life hasn’t been all it was cracked up to be), but something about her adult self is just a little too bland. Feeling ever more distant from her aging husband, she forms a relationship with her new neighbor, a recently divorced screw-up named Chris who has just moved back in with his parents (Keanu Reeves). Keep in mind, Reeves is not playing an alien or an action star, so why he was even cast in this movie remains a mystery. Pippa and Chris’ connection never really feels genuine.

Another odd piece of casting is Winona Ryder as Pippa’s needy best friend. Ryder turns up the obnoxiousness to full blast, and while I think her character is meant to be played for laughs, it comes off as grating more than anything.

The Private Lives of Pippa ...