Friends with Money

Rating

Director

Nicole Holofcener

Screenplay

Nicole Holofcener

Length

88 min.

Starring

Jennifer Aniston, Frances McDormand, JoanCusack, Catherine Keener, Greg Germann, Simon McBurney, Jason Isaacs, ScottCaan, Ty Burrell, Bob Stephenson

MPAA Rating

R (for language, some sexual content and brief drug use)

Review

Independence is a shared trait. It’s hard to believe that we all want to be self-sufficient but cling to relationships with friends and lovers. Human nature dictates that we have someone to share our lives with. Friends with Money pursues the truth of how autonomous we never really become.

Olivia (Jennifer Aniston) has no money. She started out as a teacher but her inability to deal with conflict led her to quit and start cleaning houses for a living. She’s decently good at it but money is tight and though her friends have offered to give her charity, she believes that she should be able to do everything she can on her own.

Jane (Frances McDormand) is going through a mid-life crisis. She has a good life and a good marriage but something has gripped her emotionally and she can’t seem to let it go.

Christine (Catherine Keener) believes she’s in love but after her husband fails to devote the attention to her that she feels she deserves, she begins sabotaging her relationship with him.

Franny (Joan Cusack) has the perfect life. She has a husband who adores her. She’s rich. She even has a good head on her shoulders. She is the glue that holds these friends together.

Together, they form an unusual group. It’s impossible to tell how they became friends as writer-director Nicole Holofcener assumes the audience will just buy their friendship and ignore their sharp contrasts in character. They have nothing in common. They may have been friends in college, but we just don’t know. Without knowing, we can’t help but feel these four are mismatched.

Helping tremendously are the talents of these fine leading ladies. Aniston doesn’t live up to her Good Girl success but we see an actress who’s not afraid to break type and play a somewhat atypical character. McDormand, Keener and Cusack are among Hollywood’s great character actors. All four work together like a well-oiled machine, as if they were all working on the stage together, even when apart on-screen.

It’s not just camaraderie that make these ladies who they are. They also have romantic relationships that help develop their character. Olivia hasn’t found herself a man, though Franny does pair her up with her self-centered trainer Mike (Scott Caan). The only other man in her life is one of her clients, an overweight slob named Marty (Bob Stephenson).

Jane’s husband Aaron (Simon McBurney), whom all her friends think is secretly gay, loves her and their children deeply. Christine’s husband David (Jason Isaacs)isn’t as touchy-feely as she would like. Franny’s husband Matt (Greg Germann) is probably the perfect spouse, proving that their marriage is the only solid one in the show.

The spouses are so integrated into the lives of these women that all but Aaron find their screen time limited to scenes with their wives. Mysteriously, Aaron receives his own story line of temptation. He meets a gay man who assumes he is as well and later meets a guy who not only shares his name Aaron (Ty Burrell)but also shares his love of fine fashion, wine and other pursuits. Both are married but the homoerotic tension is palpable in one scene but nothing happens between the two. Oddly enough, the storyline goes no further and ends up scrapped much like the other loose ends of the film.

Holofcener knows how to write dialogue. On the conversation aspects alone, Friends with Money succeeds. Holofcener perhaps is familiar with Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company.The film, like the musical, tries to tell several individual stories that share common characters all in varying styles of relationships. Friends with Money diverges wildly from the brilliant musical. It descends into confusion by giving pseudo-conclusions to several characters, leaves others unresolved, and then only partly finishes the rest.

Friends with Money wont appeal to many viewers. It doesn’t feature a traditional conclusion and the characters are a little too self-absorbed to resonate with the audience. There are a lot of good things in it but the few bad things weigh it down tremendously.

Review Written

May 22, 2006