In the Land of Women

Starring: Adam Brody, Meg Ryan, Elena Anaya, Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Vega, Olympia Dukakis
Director: Jonathan Kasdan

For as long as he could remember, Carter Webb (ADAM BRODY) had been falling in love with women. And for as long as he could remember, he'd been searching for the right one. He found everything he was looking for in Sophia (ELENA ANAYA) and for a little while he was happy. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.

When Carter is dumped by Sophia in a North Hollywood coffee shop, he sees his entire life flash before his eyes. Heartbroken and depressed, Carter escapes Los Angeles, heading across the country to suburban Michigan to care for his ailing grandmother (OLYMPIA DUKAKIS). An eccentric and complicated personality, Grandma offers Carter a uniquely different perspective on life and especially death.

Soon after his arrival, Carter stumbles into the lives of the family living directly across the street, Sarah Hardwicke (MEG RYAN), the mother of two daughters: Paige (MAKENZIE VEGA), a precocious, effervescent eleven-year-old and her older sister Lucy (KRISTEN STEWART), an angst-ridden teenager. While Sarah faces her own personal crisis, Lucy wrestles with the fears that define her. Through his relationships with these women, as well as his grandmother, Carter begins to discover that what felt like the end was really only just the beginning of his adventure....

Adam Brody says "It's a really positive movie that's in love with life, in love with people, and in the end, appreciates the everyday moments of life. It's about relationships and love, and all those things intersecting."

Characters

Carter Webb (ADAM BRODY) struggling writer, has fallen in love with a beautiful actress, a woman who may well be out of his league, but it's clear at the start of the film that he has built his world around her. The last words the hopeless romantic ever thought he'd hear were that Sophia was moving on with her life and career without him. When Carter goes home to break the news to his mother, Agnes (JoBeth Williams), that Sophia has ended the relationship, Agnes seems more devastated than her son, recounting and wallowing in her own tales of a broken heart. Agnes confides in Carter that she's concerned his dementia-prone grandmother living in Michigan has taken a turn for the worse.

He sees going to Michigan to care for his grandmother as an opportunity to run away from his life for awhile, get his bearings and hopefully figure some things out. Even though he doesn't quite really know what those things are.


Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) is a typical suburban wife and mother who is in the throes of sifting through her own life, a life that from all appearances is perfectly managed. With two teenage daughters, Lucy (Kristen Stewart) and Paige (Makenzie Vega), in different stages of growing up, Sarah works to resolve unattended relationships and realities. "When we meet Sarah, she's somebody who has up to now led a bottled up, unexpressed life," says Ryan. "We find her in chaos right off the bat. I love that! She's got a tremendous relationship with one daughter and a very compromised relationship with the other. She's also in a marriage that's not making her or anybody else happy. Sarah's a very composed, sort of sharp-cornered person, and into her life comes this kid who actually turns out to be the catalyst for her to change her life the way she needs to change it."




Lucy Hardwicke(Kristen Stewart) embodies the essence of an anxious teenager rebelliousness, beauty and sexual awkwardness. "Lucy is a very inward person," comments Stewart. "Painting is where she expresses herself. With Carter, she gets her first sense of puppy love, even though he's way too old for her. At first she has romantic expectations, but it's more that she's lost and here's this guy that is there for her and he listens to her. Maybe he can offer some unbiased point of view because he's so far outside of her life, and then she starts falling for him because Adam plays such a charismatic, endearing guy."






Paige Hardwicke (Mackenzie Vega) is poised at the edge of puberty, she approaches life with a wide-eyed honesty and stills holds onto the magic of believing her mother is the center of the universe. "Paige is kind of spunky and thinks she's an adult," says Vega. "I wanted to do this movie because this character suits me. In one of the scenes she's spitting out words that are bigger than she is, like that's something that makes her more intelligent. When we all meet Carter, he takes Lucy to the movies and I want to tag along, and because I think I'm an adult, I think it's my date but it's not!"


In Cinemas 20th July