Director: Jon Kasdan
Stars: Adam Brody, Olympia Dukakis, Meg Ryan, Kristen Stewart.
MPAA: PG-13
BBFC: 12
My rating: 6/10
If you liked this, you’ll like: Garden State.

‘In the Land of Women’ stars Adam Brody from The O.C. as Carter, a writer who leaves L.A. for his grandmother’s house after a painful breakup. Carter has the face of an angel, and his manly physique and disarming honesty soon have all the neighbourhood women telling him their deepest darkest secrets. When he becomes involved with Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) and her teenage daughter Lucy (Kristen Stewart), things begin to get complicated.

This is a pleasant rom-com, although it’s a little light on the comedy aspect at times, and may have more emotional viewers reaching for the tissues. It’s watchable, but also instantly forgettable, and there are few reasons to recommend this movie over the thousands of romantic comedies that get released year after year.

Meg Ryan is just plain irritating throughout, with her sad watery eyes and her horrible brown cardigan (where was the stylist when someone snuck that onto the rail?!). Kristen Stewart has a little spunk, but her character has no real depth, so the writers had to shoehorn in some vintage rock t-shirts and an interest in painting to make her seem a little less like “everyteen”.

Adam Brody has a bad case of the Zach Braffs here, young but wise, intelligent, strong and pretty but somehow still indelibly marked as a geeky loser and shunned by jocks. Of course, he’s got some funny lines, but he mainly serves as a cow-eyed hunky man for mother and daughter to open up to, thereby gaining an insight into their own relationship with each other.

It’s not all bad news though. Olympia Dukakis (Tales of the City) puts in yet another show-stealing performance, this time playing Carter’s grandmother, who is convinced she is imminently dying despite medical evidence to the contrary, and hell bent on reminding people of this at every single opportunity. Mackenzie Vega also stands out in the movie as the youngest Hardwicke sister and manages to strike the difficult balance between adorably precocious and utterly slappable.

If you’re looking for a romantic, funny movie that’s entirely devoid of surprising plot twists, ‘In the Land of Women’ will serve you well. Just make sure you have a sickbag on standby, in case that pint of syrup disagrees with you.