Robin Wright Penn’s career has seemed overshadowed by the “Penn” part of her name; the on-again, off-again marriage to tempestuous Sean Penn sometimes obscures a remarkable talent of her own.
And every time she scores a big moment in something like “Forrest Gump,” she drops back down into the indie world for low-profile work.
Here comes another small-scaled indie project, but in this one Robin Wright Penn gets to carry the day. “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” is ideally suited to her smart, slightly distant, emotionally flexible skills.
Her character, Pippa, has recently moved out of Manhattan to a quite retirement community. She’s not old, but her husband (Alan Arkin), a well known publisher, is a good 30 years her senior and he needs the special care.
Although an early sequence suggests that Pippa is the kind of responsible and devoted wife who might have come out of 1950s sitcom, flashbacks reveal a different character.
Turns out the young Pippa (played as a teen by Blake Lively) was a wild child, overwhelmed by an erratic mother (Mario Bello in a short but potent performance). When Pippa met her husband, he was already married, to a glamorous bombshell (Monica Belluci).
These memories well up as Pippa navigates a tricky part of life. She’s in an in-between time, wondering about her husband’s health and her own well-being, distracted by the oddly hostile man (Keanu Reeves) who moves in next door with his mother (Shirley Knight).
The writer-director of “Pippa Lee,” Rebecca Miller, has made serious films and this one is based on her own novel. She’s the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and is married to Daniel Day-Lewis, who starred in her film “The Ballad of Jack and Rose.”
Based on her previous output, I was expecting “Pippa” to be an ultra-heavy psychological inquiry — or something. What I didn’t expect was how funny, quick and playful it turned out to be.
The film’s humor is important to recognize, though it sometimes comes out of left field. Without it, “Pippa” is a collection of traumas and mid-life crises.
Actors who don’t always get a chance to stretch it — Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder — perform ably here, and actors who always nail it (Julianne Moore, in a small but vivid part) nail it here too.
The showcase for Robin Wright Penn is well earned and she does a delicate job of tracing the trouble beneath the placid surface. Suddenly letting forth a lewd joke in the middle of a civilized lunch, she comes across as a teakettle holding tight her own lid as she reaches the boiling point.
“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee”
This film by Rebecca Miller is more than just a showcase for Robin Wright Penn, who plays a woman sifting through her life as she adjusts to a move with her much older husband (Alan Arkin). But it is certainly a great showcase for an underused actress and, given all the life upheavals depicted, a surprisingly quick and funny film as well.
Rated: R for language, nudity, subject matter
Showing: Harvard Exit
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