Dir. Nicole Holofcener, US, 2006, 88 mins
Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack
Review by Carol Allen
Holofcener is one of those independent film makers who make films about stories, subjects and people that interest them, rather than serving the demands of the commercial market. In her case, this means people and their relationships seen from a somewhat femme-centric point of view. Walking and Talking (1996) was about two female friends, coping with the change in their relationship when one of them is getting married.
Lovely and Amazing (2002) examined the dysfunctional relationships amongst a mother and her three daughters. Friends with Money is a bittersweet ensemble piece, which has its theme in its title.
Olivia (Aniston) is single and hard up, having given up her teaching job, and is scraping a living as a cleaner. Her three best friends are all older, married, affluent to various degrees, and worried about Olivia. They also have problems of their own. Christine (Keener, who also starred in Holofcener's previous two films) and Patrick (Jason Isaacs) work together as screenwriters and are finding their personal and professional lives together are starting to unravel. Jane (McDormand) has a successful career as a designer and a loving husband Aaron (Simon McBurney), who has infinite patience with her menopausal anger, while Franny (Cusack) and Matt (Greg Germann) are not only blissfully happy together but stinking rich. Their only problem is how to spend it all.
The film examines the subject of how friendship is affected by, and yet survives, these differences in a series of incidents - meals, shopping trips and so on - which are almost inconsequential at times, yet full of truthful, funny and sometimes sad observations about both people and the nature of affluence. As the directionless and somewhat gloomy Olivia, still stuck on her married ex-lover, aimlessly dallying with another (Scott Caan), who has loser written all over him, and obsessed with collecting free samples of expensive face creams, Aniston proves, as she did in The Good Girl, that she can do a lot more than her role as Rachel in Friends. She brings a lot of depth and nuances to her character.
The strongest element of Keener and Isaacs' relationship is its destructiveness. When they start on a marital squabble, every cutting remark rings true. McDormand is, as usual, superb, playing a woman who has lost her zest for life to the extent that she even refuses to wash her hair. The relationship between her and her husband, whom the rest of the group are convinced is gay, is really touching. And the scene where he meets another married meterosexual on a shopping trip and they start exchanging fashion tips is a delight. The least interesting relationship is that of Cusack and Germann, an American version of Bridget Jones's “smug marrieds”. The only fly in their expensive ointment is that Matt sneaks off for the occasional cigarette. “And you let him?,” squawk her shocked friends. How American! I have to admit that the men are somewhat underwritten, particularly Isaacs' part, although McBurney gets past that one by fleshing out his role for himself, and Germann floats by on a cloud of vague geniality.
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