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In the Land of Women
Actors: Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart, and Meg Ryan
Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Retail Price (not our price): $27.98
Release Date: 2007-10-30
Theatrical Release Date: 2007-04-20
Studio: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Run Time: 98 minutes
Format: Array
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Discs: 1


Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):

1) Amazon.com
Jon Kasdan's directorial debut, In the Land of Women, is a touching romantic comedy portraying the love quandaries of a hip, Hollywood twenty-something to show how his fast-paced life as a porn screenwriter encourages the jaded attitude at the root of his angst. Carter Webb (Adam Brody) hangs out in a recognizable Los Feliz cafe, where in the opening scene he is dumped by his sultry Gap-model girlfriend. In hopes of salvaging his last ounce of creativity to pen a real story, Carter escapes to peaceful, suburban Michigan to care for his grandmother, Phyllis (Olympia Dukakis). Phyllis' death obsession, however, drives him outdoors, where he befriends neighbor Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) and her two daughters, Lucy (Kristen Stewart) and Paige (Mackenzie Vega). Bonding with both the more mature Sarah, sick with breast cancer, and the discombobulated teen Lucy, Carter redefines love with his new understanding of what it means to think about things other than one's self. Bright, crisp color and fairly natural lighting lends the film a contemporary feel, and the script is surprisingly unsentimental. Ryan's performance--less saccharine than some previous--along with Brody's wry character and Dukakis as a bitter dying woman, help the film to avoid corny melodrama so common to the genre. Unfortunately, the ending is too neatly tied up, but not enough to destroy what emotional poignancy the film has generated. Ultimately a critique of the vacant, superficial lifestyle that a life in Hollywood perpetuates, In the Land of Women leaves one wondering whether Kasdan's attraction to the script wasn't based on his own Los Angeles experiences. —Trinie Dalton

2) Product Description
Aspiring writer Carter Webb has just been dumped by his true love, Sophia. Heartbroken and depressed, Carter escapes Los Angeles to suburban Michigan to care for his ailing grandmother and to work on a book he has always wanted to write. Soon after his arrival, Carter stumbles into the lives of the family living directly across the street: Sarah Hardwicke, and her daughters, Paige and Lucy. His relationships with all of these women help Carter discover that what felt like an end was only just the beginning of something else...

Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 3.0 out of 5

1) interesting film   [Rating: 3 out of 5]
saw this film the other night and it had some interesting elements. Adam Brody portrays a writer in this film and he is finding himself. Meg Ryan is his Neighbor and she also has Breast Cancer and they become very close. He also becomes close to her daughter as well. so many different things are going on in this film. Brody's Grandmother in this film is a stone cold trip and cracked me up. she was the most on Point character in the film.it wasn't a comedy but it did have some moments that would trip you out.

2) Land of Endless Drivel   [Rating: 1 out of 5]
Poor plot, dialogue and acting clutter this emotional time-bomb. Throughout the film, the usually likeable Adam Brody comes across as a whiny sap, while Meg Ryan appears in need of a refresher course in acting. Bad editing partially plays a role in the downfall of this film, extending scenes with pointless banter, and clipping dialogue that seems to be important. Honestly, when you're done watching this movie, it's hard to figure out what truly went wrong. The pieces don't connect and the characters are not believable or likeable. Even the talented Olympia Dukakis appears lost in this mess. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.

3) I guess this genre is growing on me   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Well, I just got done saying that "slice of life" realist drama-comedies are hardly my favorite genre (in my review of Standing Still (2005)), and here I am giving a second one a 10 out of 10. So much for self-knowledge.I think what most attracted me here is attitude, which was achieved through a combination of the script and the great performances (although everything else--from the locations to the music, matched nicely). I've long been a "fan" of Zen and Taoism, although a fairly casual fan (which I think is appropriate). This tale of an understated softcore "erotica" scriptwriter from Hollywood who makes a sojourn to Michigan to live with his elderly, hypochondriacal grandmother and becomes wrapped up in the lives of the females in the family across the street is a good exemplar of a realistic Zen/Taoist approach to life. It's not that every character exemplifies this, or that any of them do at all times, but that's what's realistic about it--not everything will be even-keel. Living mindfully in the moment involves doing so when we get upset or worried, too; it's part of the Zen "return to the market".All of the main characters and most of the auxiliary characters are likable. Director Jon Kasdan infuses the film with a fair amount of very funny humor--this could have been hilarious if the aim were to just make a comedy. Everyone is going through major life trials and occasionally traumatic events. But everyone remains relatively cool, and Kasdan makes the smart move of not overplaying anything, not following melodramatic openings, and leaving threads that aren't unresolved but that resolve in very subtle and unexpected ways--and that's just like life is most of the time.

4) Mopey Look at a Young Writer's Emotional Catharsis Aided by Ryan's Solid Work   [Rating: 3 out of 5]
This 2007 movie reeks of the puppy-warm hypersensitivity of CW/WB teen-angst dramas like Dawson's Creek and Felicity and even has Adam Brody, recently of Fox's The O.C., as its star. That's not to say that the story, written by filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan's youngest son Jon, doesn't have certain moments of resonance, but it remains stubbornly shallow in execution perhaps because this represents Jon Kasdan's directorial debut. Actual nuance is often replaced by moments of forced comedy and drama. Brody is an appealing actor and can be razor-sharp when given an appropriately sized role like his smarmy turn as a Hollywood studio assistant in 2006's Thank You for Smoking, but Kasdan makes him a mopey presence here with little latitude for revealing any emotional complexity.He plays Carter Webb, a 26-year old LA-based writer who specializes in soft porn (a plot point that isn't explored too much). His heart is broken when his pretty Spanish actress-model girlfriend Sofia, accelerating quickly on the Hollywood fast lane, summarily dumps him in a coffee shop. In order to decompress and heal, Carter decides to stay with his ailing, comically senile grandmother Phyllis in Michigan for a while. She lives across the street from the Hardwickes, and he gets to know mother Sarah and her two daughters Lucy and Paige. Before you shout The Graduate, the film does not go this exploitative route but instead looks at how Sarah and Lucy are drawn to Carter because of their own dilemmas. Sarah is an idle housewife who finds out she has breast cancer and a cheating husband, while Lucy is a typical angst-driven teen who has trouble dealing with boys and her parents. Nothing too surprising happens, mainly long dialogue scenes between the principals with minor characters fade away entirely.As Lucy, Kristen Stewart looks like she may have the chops to become Scarlett Johansson's successor in alienated youth roles, though her constantly slouched posture and downward gaze gets wearing. Absent from the screen for at least three years, Meg Ryan is a welcome presence as Sarah, and it's nice to see she still has a career after her lengthy string of 1990's romantic comedies. Minus her trademark twinkle, she manages to bring depth to a tightly wound character defined by her sorrow, and yet Kasdan shifts away from her character's relationship with Carter just when it gets interesting. The main challenge in watching her as a forty-something suburban matron is how much she simply doesn't look like one. Makenzie Vega plays Paige with predictable precociousness, while others barely register, including Olympia Dukakis on automatic pilot as Phyllis, JoBeth Williams as Carter's useless mother Agnes and Elena Anaya looking very much like Audrey Tautou's baby sister as Sofia. Perhaps reflective of the film's poor box office reception, the DVD contains no extras.

5) Just How I Hoped it Would Be   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I really liked this movie. I found I could really relate to the characters. I have a friend who went through the same situation Meg Ryan did. The look on Adam Brody's face as the girl he loves is breaking up with him will make your heart hurt. His grandmother added another dimension, she made you laugh sometimes & made you sad at other times. The movie put you through emotional ups & downs but didn't leave you feeling all sad and depressed at the end, it gave you hope. I loved it. I think Adam Brody is going to be an Oscar winner someday--sooner than later.