There could hardly be a better cast than that assembled by writer-director Rebecca Miller for this adaptation of her own novel. It is about Pippa, a middle-aged married woman, liked by everyone and truly understood by no one, who is forced by circumstances to break free of her constraints.

Pippa is played by Robin Wright Penn, who becomes more striking, and a better actress, as she ages. Her husband is a retired publisher (Alan Arkin), who is many years older than her and kicking against the pricks of living in a Connecticut retirement community after three heart attacks.
With these two at the film’s centre, and Keanu Reeves, Monica Bellucci, Maria Bello, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder in supporting roles, there was never going to be much messing about — the ensemble playing is first-class throughout.

Pippa’s story is told in a series of flashbacks, which combine with her present travails to flesh out the details of her life. We see her pill-popping mother virtually destroy the even tenure of her youth, her husband’s propensity for ludicrous affairs in the hope of prolonging his appetite for life, and the loner (Reeves) with whom she might or might not discover herself again. Blake Lively plays the young Pippa and does so very well.

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Miller’s work as director is as sensitive as that of her actors but the general effect is a little wan — as if Pippa is struggling through a morass of muddy emotions with the American equivalent of a stiff upper lip.

That apart, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee proves that The Ballad of Jack and Rose was no fluke and that Miller can produce work just as good as the best of recent American independent cinema.