While this film may not be as powerful as it should be and may not contain the biting wit and humor that it could have had, it is none the less, an effective and entertaining movie about a small group of people.  The movie is low-key and I like that there was not present absurd plot twists as well as not having the characters act over-the-top and/or unnatural.  All the actors in this film put in nice performances but it is Frances McDormand, who gives us her best performance since Fargo, who holds the story together.

      Sam and Alex are romantically involved med students played by Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale.  After the school year ends, they decide to head west to Laurel Canyon and stay at the supposedly vacant house owned by Sam's mother.
However, upon arrival at the house, they find that Sam's mother Jane is not only living there, but is conducting music recording sessions as she is a record producer.

      Sam believes that Jane and the band being there will interfere with Alex's work on her college dissertation and so he convinces her that they need to look for an apartment.  To complicate things, Jane is also romantically involved with the lead singer of the band.  When Sam starts to begin his work as an intern at a hospital, Alex slowly becomes fascinated with the wild and devil-may-care life style of Jane and the band.  And then to complicate things even further, Sam begins to notice a pretty intern that he carpools with.  The plot thickens on whether Sam and Alex can stay together while all this other stuff is going on.

      As this is most certainly a character driven story, the effectiveness of the film hinges on the acting and the believability of the characters.  McDormand is perfect as the wild and mistake prone Jane but at the same time makes her a fun and caring person.  Jane can be rude and profane but she also cares about people and is serious about her job as a music producer.  I thought that Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale were equally perfect for their roles.  I also have to give kudos to Alessandro Nivola who plays Jane's love interest Ian.  I don't think I have seen him before in a movie but he gives a superb, engaging performance.  The movie really centers around these four people and their performances are what makes this film a success.

      For me, the best part of the film was the relationship between Sam and Jane.  It is obvious that Jane was not the best mother in the world and that Sam grew up in this world of no stability and constant kaos.  This lifestyle resulted in Sam now wanting everything in his life to be controlled and stable with little or no surprises.  And of course, Jane is just the opposite as she is a person who lives minute by minute with no plans for the future.  This psychological difference between Sam and Jane seems to rule everything that takes place between them.  And when the straight laced Alex begins to change her style and personality to try to be more like Jane and Ian, it causes conflict with her relationship with Sam.  This theme seems to be at the core of the story, and it written and acted in the most effective way.

      I have to say that I wanted to feel some stronger emotional drama from this film and I believe it would have been a better movie if there was more biting humor aimed at the world of music production.  But this movie was done in a more low key manner so that it could focus more directly on the characters... so, I don't want to make this a major criticism by any means.  I just wanted to feel more emotional involved with the story like I did for example while watching The Big Chill.

       So, this is a film with some really good acting and some really interesting characters.  It wouldn't surprise me if McDormand gets an Oscar nomination next year for best actress... she's that good and engaging in this film.  The film also had a story that seemed to be fresh and have an original feel to it.  I ended up liking this film a lot for exactly for what it is.