3/5
(15) US. Rebecca Hall, Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet
In this sharp talky comedy, Keener plays retro furniture dealer Kate, who sells mid-20th-century classics out of her Manhattan shop. ‘We buy it from the children of dead people,’ says her husband (Platt) sarcastically. They’ve also just bought the flat next door from neighbour Andra, a cantankerous nonagenarian, with the proviso that she stays put until she dies. Rebecca Hall plays Andra’s granddaughter, a mammogram technician, and the film opens with a bouncy montage of said body parts being slapped down on her X-ray machine.
Holofcener’s writing is unnervingly observant. When it looks as though Kate’s husband is chasing after Andra’s other grandaughter (Peet), another writer would play him as a sleaze or her as a man-eater. Here it’s more banal, a shoddy affair of convenience; realistic, just like those X-rayed mammograms.
