Friends with Money Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Friends With Money

Despite an excellent cast Nicole Holofcener's third film is a horrendous bore.

It focuses on three rich married women (Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand and Joan Cusack) and their poor single friend (Jennifer Aniston). Sadly none of them has much of a personality and they are all pretty unpleasent company in various ways and so I never warmed to them or cared what happened to them.

On the plus side: Cusack McDormand and particularly Keener are incapable of being truly bad and turn in the best performances you could hope for given the limitations, Keener's acid tongue during rows with her husband (Jason Issacs; a plank) being particulary memorable.

Aniston is clearly out of her depth, having remembered how to act for The Good Girl she seems to have forgotten again and wheels out Rachel from Friends by another name.

I hate to be so negative about this film, i want to like it because of who is in it but when you give great actors so little to work with you just end up looking silly.

Really enjoyable..

OK, Given that it's star rating is low, and the topmost reviews seem to be quite negative, after watching this I thought it needed some good review.

It's one of those 'snapshot of life' movies. It takes a few weeks of life of a group of friends and tells the story of what happens to them between one group meal out, and a charity meal out.

Nothing terribly exciting happens, nothing terribly coherent happens, but it's all amusing or interesting.

Basically i really enjoyed this. I think Aniston (though oddly cast as a friend of the others who are significantly older?) really held her own and shows she can act in serious roles. The others are all obviously talented performers.

My only criticism is that if there is supposed to be a central theme or message, it completely passed me by. I spent a little too much of the movie sitting back and trying to make any sense of why we were being told all the different stories.

Overall very worth watching if you enjoy slice of life type movies.