The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Wright Penn touches greatness in Pippa Lee

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TIFF Film review: The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee

Published: December 04, 2009 1:59 a.m.

Last modified: December 04, 2009 2:02 a.m.

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Director: Rebecca Miller
Stars: Robin Wright Penn, Keanu Reeves
Classification: STC
Rating: ****

The perpetually overlooked Robin Wright Penn touches greatness in Rebecca Miller’s domestic drama The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Wright plays our heroine, whose story we follow in all its joy and pain over several decades, a kind of episodic Forrest Gump Lite.

Wright Penn is note perfect, authentic, and natural with a face that is translucently, nakedly expressive; it’s as though we are looking too closely at her.

She can’t hide much. This is Wright’s best work yet, and that’s saying something.

The action starts at Pippa’s birth. She comes out covered in fur. Her mother (Bello) runs the halls of the hospital screaming “I had a monkey!” and never moves beyond that, regarding her daughter with a mix of pathetic, misguided love and hate. The fur goes but the resentment remains.

Flash-forward 25 years and Pippa’s living in a retirement community with her big shot publisher husband (Arkin) who is living on borrowed time after three heart attacks.

Her neat, tidy, and false world begins to crack when visions of her dead mother appears.

She’s given a chance at redemption when a neighbour’s son comes to hide out in he community. Truths are told, many are ignored, affairs are revealed, begun and ended; suicide and death hovers, and dashed loyalties give way to new beginnings. Lifetimes are jammed into 93 minutes and there’s nary a dull moment, thanks to Miller’s supple direction.

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