'Have your cake and eat it?' That's what I was thinking on the way into the cinema to see the latest film starring Jennifer Aniston. 'Good for you.'
After a decade going global as Rachel in Friends, another decade starring in rom-coms of varying irritability, which adds to 20 years a-tabloiding, she also wants to be taken seriously as an actor.
And, despite an occasionally manipulative script, she pretty much pulls it off in this entertaining look at a damaged woman suffering physical and mental scars in the wake of a family tragedy.
Claire Bennett is an LA divorcee hooked on painkillers and pretty angry with the world. You get that from the off in the opening scene, at a group therapy session where leader Annette (Felicity Huffman) asks those present to express their feelings towards a fellow member, Nina (Anna Kendrick), a young mother who took her own life. While everyone else talks self-pityingly, Claire salutes Nina's determination. Anger is an energy.
Back at home, Claire's Mexican housekeeper is the saintly Silvana (a Maid of the Match performance from Adriana Barraza), who puts up with her boss's mood swings, and even brings her across the Mexican border for some illegal medication and a brush with the border cops.
The script's not exactly testing - Claire snares Nina's widowed husband, Nina dream-haunts Claire - but the cast is good and Aniston and Barraza are great leading the charge through this dysfunctional romp that could only involve people living in LA, the most self-obsessed place on the planet.
It all rolls along nicely, but without the front pairing in such great form it wouldn't be half as much fun. Think: Nurse Jackie when Eve Best was bouncing off Edie Falco. Besides, as someone who is a martyr to the oul' back, it was great to see a fellow-sufferer on the big screen, failing to cope.
Now, where did I leave those tablets?
John Byrne
