Adapted from the her own book by director Rebecca Miller, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee has a fine character study at its heart, tracking the eponymous Pippa (a near comatose Robin Wright-Penn) as she moves with older husband Alan Arkin to a retirement village and the seams of her seemingly perfect life split open, revealing the convoluted history which has bought her to this point.
In tone it aims for Big Fish or even Forrest Gump, but where those movies used their protagonist as a means to study the people and events around them, here the lead is examined in intricate detail. Unfortunately the film wants us to love it a bit too much, heavy-handedly attempting to stir audience empathy by unceremoniously dumping twee whimsy on our heads, assuming that this will charm and beguile rather than sicken.
Very much a film of two halves, the first portion is dedicated to proving how quirky it can be, with stereotype ‘dangerous lesbians’, half-baked philosophy and attempts at dry humour that fall disappointingly flat. As we progress, things suddenly veer into ultra-serious territory with Pippa’s mother (an impressive and versatile Maria Bello) descending into drug-addled hell, whilst Winona Ryder rises to the occasion, and even Keanu remembers he’s an actor, putting in his most emotional performance in many a moon.
The whole thing is told through innovatively realised flashbacks, with the different techniques managing to be inventive but never showy, but they do jar the narrative, an extended (and it has to be said, beautiful) animated sequence being particularly guilty.
Despite these pluses, the film is hard to identify with and harder still to love, veering wildly between oddball comedy and deadly serious realism, and ultimately falling off the tightrope between the two. With an extensive, big name cast and bestselling source material, this should be a hit – but it’s ultimately a flawed experiment that will struggle to find an audience. Best kept private.
