Lovely and amazing could well describe the performances. Finally, Catherine Keener strays from her bitter, brittle characters of her past few films to... well, she's still bitter, but at least you can see why, and she softens by the end of the movie. She has good comic timing and reactions, but she shades even her comedic moments with vulnerability, disappointment, and defensiveness. Brenda Blethyn, for once, is not shrill and grating -- that alone would be enough for me to praise her, but as a bonus, she's quite good. Raven Goodwin as Annie, a role made to destroy a girl's self-esteem, is excellent. Jake Gyllenhaal, as a teenage photo-booth clerk, is irresistibly adorable; Keener's attraction to him is actually believable, as opposed to Bebe Neuwirth's baffling attraction to the snotty teen in Tadpole.
Actually, though it's well-written and funny, the movie depressed me. It's too good in parts -- writer/director Nicole Holofcener nails squirmy situations so realistically that I felt empathetically sick. Emily Mortimer pleading to know why she was turned down for a part and obsessing over her body; Blethyn pathetically hoping that her doctor is flirting with her (ouch). Especially excruciating is a movie premiere party where Keener finds herself alone in a completely unfamiliar environment, where everybody else knows each other. She tries to talk to the one person she's been introduced to, Mortimer's agent, but gets blown off. So she stands awkwardly, conspicuously alone, a fixed, unhappy smile on her face. If you've ever felt out of place and abandoned at a social event, you will relive it. (If, like me, you've had this feeling too many times to pick just one to relive, you will wince and feel ill. If you've never had this feeling, I don't want to know about it.)
The good news is that the women pull themselves together on their own, without men [actually, one suspects, because they're without men (but it's not a man-hating movie)]. The resolution to the story is refreshing and done with a light touch -- truly lovely and amazing.
(Sorry if this review is a bit listless; it is so damn hot that I think my brain melted.)
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