“In the Land of Women” centers on a Los Angeles screenwriter who heads to the suburbs of Michigan to recover from a breakup. Once in the Midwest, he begins having a relationship with a mother and daughter (Meg Ryan and Kristen Stewart) who live across the street.
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 angstridden 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…
About the Story
In his directorial debut, writer Jonathan Kasdan presents a personal and poignant story about the serendipitous way in which people’s lives can intersect at the most critical times. Guided by the formidable words of wisdom dispensed to all writers, write what you know, Kasdan found shifting gears from the daily rigors of writing for television to penning a feature-length screenplay, became an act of following his own heart and focusing on his love for film.
Kasdan explains, “I’ve been inundated with movies since my earliest memories. Films are my passion. It took a couple of scripts for me to realize that what I had to do was write something that was, among other things, fun. What I ended up writing was far more dramatic and more personal that I had intended.” He continues, “When I sat down to write a movie about what I really loved, it seemed obvious that what I really loved were women, being around them and trying to figure out my relationship with them.”
Carter Webb’s adventure is one of self-discovery . where often the bumpy road traveled is more illuminating than the final destination you arrive at. “The movie is really about a guy who is in the process of falling in love with his life. When we meet Carter,” Kasdan says, “he’s struggling, conflicted and a bit lost. At the end of the movie, his changes are very subtle as he’s had a couple of those moments where he comes into contact with the overwhelming thrill of the journey of his life.”
The script’s ability to connect with those defining moments of everyday life was what attracted producers Steve Golin and David Kanter to the screenplay. “This is a movie about humanity,” says Kanter. “It’s fresh and original and the dramatic questions posed are very relevant and couched in real language . the dialogue is funny and smart. You’re always hoping to find material that will leave an impact on the audience.”
For Golin what makes In the Land of Women such a compelling story, is people colliding at a time when everything in their lives, everything they thought they controlled, is slipping through their fingers, and in that moment, find allies in each other. “The movie spans a very brief period of time. Both Carter and Sarah are going through their own personal crises and for this short window they develop a very poignant bond with each other. It’s about two people at the right time at the right place.”
Adam Brody adds “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.”
In the Land of Women is a glimpse inside a female-centric world from a young man’s perspective. What continually caught the actors off-guard was Kasdan’s uncanny ability to articulate a woman’s perspective with such sensitivity.
“It’s the mystery of the movie. How does he know about all these relationships?” muses Meg Ryan. “The tension in the family, all this unspoken stuff and how it plays out and how it affects everything about each of their lives. All the things that are not said and that finally need to be said, and that’s the great catharsis of the movie, is when things are finally expressed and they can finally be healed.”
Olympia Dukakis offers, “Jon is so open, he doesn’t attempt to be something he’s not. He’s a very sensitive, vulnerable guy who has tremendous enthusiasm. I think he’s had his own unique experiences with women and understands the gravity of some relationships, the damage that can be done and the joy that can be there.
Kanter suggests where Kasdan may have started to learn about the psychology of the opposite sex. “Jon told us a story about when he attended this very renowned private school in West Los Angeles and apparently wrote an advice column for the girls who attended this fancy girl’s private school in Brentwood. He was giving advice to high school girls while being a teenager himself. It’s part of his charm. He has an innate ability to observe human behavior and then to write about it.”
The cast is quick to weigh in with praise regarding Kasdan’s talent in his directorial debut. “Jon blows me away. He’s so calm,” says Adam Brody. “It’s his first movie but you’d think it was his tenth. He knows every aspect of a movie shoot, not just about setting up shots, but also different ways to light, work with actors.”
Makenzie Vega adds, “Right before a scene, Mr. Kasdan comes over to me and reminds me about little things with my character, he helped me so much. He’s so cool!” The coolness factor was one admired by all the cast. “I think Jon is unbelievable and just so passionate about what’s he’s doing,” says Kristen Stewart. “He wrote the script and you can ask him any question and he can tell you every thing you want to know. It’s like he is every character!”
“I think audiences are really going to enjoy the humor in this story,” continues Dukakis, “seeing all these characters at different ages grappling with love and love’s disappointments and expectations. I suppose the passages of life are full of contradictions – they have joys, pains, disillusionment and wonder.”
What is the director’s ultimate hope for what audiences will experience? “I feel like I’ve had that a couple of times where I’ve been able to catch myself in a moment and think ‘This is the best, being alive!’” says Kasdan. “It comes back to a Woody Allen quote from Deconstructing Harry where he’s visited by the ghost of his old friend who’s just died. He’s in the jail cell and he says to the ghost, ‘I know it sounds trite, but I just want to be happy’ and the ghost says ‘To be alive is to be happy. Take it from me.’ That has stuck with me forever and it has become one of the formative pieces of dialogue in my life.
“This film speaks to this idea that is powerful in my life, which is some sort of synchronicity existing in the universe where events seem to come together at the strangest moments, and sort of work together. Hopefully that’s what audiences will see . that kind of magic.”
Cast and Characters
Production was put on hold for eight months until lead actor Adam Brody was available, a decision that the producers and Kasdan have never regretted. “Adam is the heart, soul and life blood of this film,” says Kasdan. “I spent five months looking for an actor to play the lead in this largely autobiographical story. What I discovered was that I wasn’t really looking for an actor to play me, I was looking for a movie star to play someone way more attractive and far less neurotic! In Adam I found everything I wanted for Carter. Adam is a pure, classic leading man in the tradition of Tom Hanks and Cary Grant.”
Golin concurs, “Adam brings a lot of good will to Carter. He appears effortless in terms of his performance he’s very natural and that’s one of Adam’s big strengths. The audience wants to like him even though sometimes he’s doing things that may be questionable. Audiences can’t help but give him the benefit of the doubt.”
A struggling writer, Carter 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.
Confesses Kasdan, “Carter is a character not unlike me in a lot of ways. He’s a very, very verbal young guy who has lived his life sort of in a neurotic kind of active and imaginative way . all of his successes and failures have been related to his ability to express himself. He’s one of those guys who’s seen a lot of movies and who has lived as much on the other side of the screen as he has in the real world. The thing he’s always fantasized about and worked his hardest at is this relationship with Sophia. But she doesn’t want to be with him anymore.”
“Getting dumped by Sophia sends Carter into a tailspin,” says Brody. “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.”
While Carter’s and Sarah’s story unfolds, so does the viewer’s understanding that In the Land of Women is not so much a physical place, as it is an emotional landscape where Carter learns about relationships about their frailties and their fleeting nature.
“When I finished the script and read it,” says Kasdan, “it became immediately clear that Sarah’s part was an incredible opportunity to use Meg Ryan. I have been a fan of hers for a long time she has a real skill and craft that allows her to be funny and attractive but also she has this incredible evolved soulfulness. I’ve always felt like all the stories I tell on some level are about that space between your ideals and your desires. What you want to be and what you are, and how you reconcile those things on a day-to-day basis.”
Ryan says she was deeply flattered that Kasdan chose her for the part and signed on without any hesitation. The actress was excited to play such a complex woman who finds her world unraveling and is desperate to put her life in order. “It was unbelievable because it’s such a fantastic part,” says Ryan.
“Dramatically it’s what every actor wants to get their hands on, a peaked emotional experience when you have to accept that life is finite. But also, Sarah’s a bit funny and a little odd – everything you want to indulge in. What I found interesting is that there are two protagonists in this movie, Carter and Sarah. That doesn’t happen a lot of times for women in films. You’re usually the object of the director’s interest, not the subject.”
Sarah Hardwicke 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.
“What’s great about Sarah and Carter is what happens in so many lives,” says Ryan. “You expect the people who influence you the most are going to be the longest lasting, but that is not always the case. People come in, they float into your life and they alter your direction a hundred and eighty degrees. Carter and Sarah meet and they change each other irreversibly for the better. I think for myself, that’s how the angelic realm really operates on the planet. You do things for someone, not even knowingly.”
Portraying Grandma Archer is Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, who welcomed the opportunity to experiment and have fun with the role of a deliciously fragmented old woman. The film’s best comedic moments are those exchanges between Carter, with his laid-back, self effacing charm, and a feisty, sharp-tongued old woman who switches between having flashes of wisdom to hurtling insults.
“I thought Grandma would be a lot of fun. She’s out there, quite outrageous. I love how she can be so helpless one minute then give you the finger the next,” laughs Dukakis.
“When Carter comes out to take care of her,” Dukakis continues, “he has no idea what’s waiting for him. no idea how eccentric and how demanding and needy she is. He can’t just be a boarder at her house, he has to engage with her. she doesn’t let him just drift through. Initially the grandmother and Carter are very much at odds with each other, coming from very different worlds and realities. The fact that they somehow find a way to bridge, not just a generation gap, but that they actually see in each other something of value is truly wonderful.
Playing the role of Lucy is Kristen Stewart, who 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.”
“One of the things I really liked about In the Land of Women is that it didn’t stereotype or wasn’t a cliché on teen angst,” continues Stewart. “Lucy is like so many of my friends, so many girls I know. She’s kind of grooving along being herself then all of a sudden she’s like the popular girl and all that attention kind of freaks her out. She doesn’t know how to deal with that plus she’s got this complicated relationship with her mother that holds a lot of resentment. Carter teaches her a very valuable lesson . you can’t allow your fears and resentment to inhibit your life.”
With regards to capturing on camera the strained relationship between Sarah and Lucy, Kasdan was very deliberate with the blocking, always making sure there were physical objects between Ryan and Stewart, or as one actor approached the other, one was moving away, intensifying the estrangement between mother and daughter.
As Ryan explains, the emotional gulf between Sarah and Lucy is the complete opposite of the effortlessly tender relationship she enjoys with her younger daughter Paige, played by Makenzie Vega. “With Paige they have this sort of miraculously easy, close relationship that neither of them have to try at,” says Ryan. “They have the same sense of humor, and there’s something about Paige that’s allknowing. Sarah doesn’t know why it’s so easy with one and so difficult with the other daughter. There’s this constant kind of confusion and battle – she’s the same person but somehow different with each of them.”
Golin provides further insight into what can fuel teenage-angst. “Lucy is going through a bit of an identity crisis. She’s trying to figure out and come to terms with her womanhood . her sexuality and independence from her mother. Lucy’s at that age where it’s very typical and natural to rebel against her mother and Carter comes along and he’s charming, older and she’s quite intrigued by him.”
Kasdan adds, “Lucy’s character is struggling at every moment of her life with a sort of deep confusion, which leads to an enormous amount of fear. It comes from some unfortunate events in her past but things that so many people will be able to relate to. Her fear is not one some external danger, one of betrayal and shame and being made to look like a fool, or not so much a fool as a freak.”
Makenzie Vega brings irresistible charm to the character of Sarah’s youngest daughter, Paige. Poised at the edge of puberty, Paige 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!”
“Meg Ryan is not like any of those soccer moms, she’s more laid-back. She’s a caring mom but she’s not on top of every single one of our moves. We had a pretty close relationship,” adds Vega.
Having three sisters in real life, Vega established a very natural rapport with Stewart. “It’s really easy with Kristen and we play off each other. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get loud in a scene, it’s a little embarrassing for me but Kristen would help me by getting louder so I would too.”
For Kasdan, it was critical to find the right pairing of energy, looks and talent when it came to casting the roles of Lucy and Paige. “Kristen has her own special kind of charisma that’s more completely natural and directly connected to adolescence. Being an actual teenage girl, she has an authentic kind of self-consciousness that creates raw energy and power. She is somewhere between being a kid and being a young woman and you can see her reconciling those two opposing forces in herself at every moment of her performance. “Makenzie, on the other hand, is truly just a kid, not self-conscious at all, completely uninhibited. She has a kind of light, a glow that is irrepressible.”
The Look and Location
Production Designer Sandy Cochrane and Costume Designer Trish Keating were brought on as key collaborators for ensuring Kasdan’s vision was translated onto the screen.
The two key sets in the movie, the Hardwicke house and Grandma’s house, were brought to life by Cochrane. After an exhaustive search that took the filmmaker scouting various cities across Canada, the city of Victoria, located on Vancouver Island, had all the elements that Kasdan was looking for.
“Jon wanted a slightly heightened reality and we spent a lot of time talking about that when we were driving around looking for locations,” says Cochrane. “The story starts off in Los Angeles then shifts to Michigan, so when you arrive in the suburbs of the mid-west, there’s an overwhelming sense of green as opposed to the overexposed, sun-parched landscape of Los Angeles.”
“Both Jon and I are from Southern California, which doesn’t have the most traditional suburbs,’ Brody says, “To us and to Carter, the suburbs are this pristine place you’ve seen in movies – football games, prom – sort of John Hughes meets Norman Rockwell. Jon’s got a great crew and they’ve found and transformed our location into this ideal suburb. My character’s curiosity of wanting to explore this other side of the world, in a way, is satisfied when he runs away to Michigan, in search of something he’s seen in movies.”
“The pairing of the houses was the most critical element to finding the locations we wanted. For Grandma’s house, we needed to find a house where the owners would allow us to take their beautifully kept home and make it a visually distressed residence. Then we needed to find a house directly across the street, where there couldn’t be any impediment view-wise, which had to have a certain kind of architecture that presented a completely different aesthetic.”
Once the houses were found, movie magic stepped in and both houses were transformed. The entrance to Grandma’s house was dressed with overgrown shrubs and weeds to give it the appearance of a dark burrowing world. The interior of the house was completely redone to reveal a home that had been neglected, where newspapers and mementos cluttered every inch of space. Across the street where the Hardwicke House stood, immaculate green lawns and an abundance of carefully groomed flower beds presented the opposite impression . a family that was very concerned about outward appearances.
The rest of the locations needed; a mall, ice cream shop, a hospital among others, posed no problem and Victoria easily doubled for the Michigan suburbs. For the Los Angeles portion of the shoot, Kasdan already had real landmarks in mind that he wanted to shoot at such as the 101 Coffee Shop and the Santa Monica Pier.
Cochrane explains that Kasdan’s clear vision of what he wanted, meant “asking the right questions, listening very carefully and taking every opportunity to bounce ideas off him. Jon has a vast knowledge of film, he has a long list of films that he can reference so that you can go back, look at these films and know exactly what he’s going for.”
But besides providing the physical locations needed for In the Land of Women’s intimate world, the Uplands neighborhood where the Hardwicke House and Grandma’s House were located, also became much more of a home away from home than anyone had expected. An experience not lost on Meg Ryan.
“I loved shooting in Victoria and this neighborhood was just crazy! I couldn’t have made it up!” the actor remembers. “They were so cool to let us into their neighborhood night after night, day after day. They would walk their dogs and wave to me, then they started baking things and bringing them by the trailer . I got chai tea from someone’s grandma. It was the biggest, open-armed hug all the time. Adam would leave his dog at one the neighbor’s house who left the door open so that when we stopped shooting around 3am, Adam would just go inside and call ‘Penny, Penny’ and Penny would come out – their dogs would hang together. It was just so sweet!”
Producer David Kanter adds, “The neighborhood of Uplands was incredibly accommodating to our shooting and it took some leading people in the neighborhood to get everybody to allow us to come in and disrupt their lives for five weeks. These neighbors became part of our crew and every night people would come out at cocktail hour with their glasses of white wine and watch us shoot, which sometimes is like watching paint dry. We met some incredible people on this film and we’re so grateful.”
In the Land of Women is a character-driven story and Kasdan wanted the wardrobe to enhance and reflect the reality of each character. “Jon had done a lot of tear sheets himself from magazines,” says Keating. “He had a very clear idea of what each character’s wardrobe should be.how it ties into and tracks the progression of the character.”
With Sarah’s wardrobe, the objective was to capture the character’s shift from a very contained and repressed person to a woman that begins to reconnect to her sensuality and becomes more emotionally available.
“Sarah plays the part of a very frustrated, upper-middle class wife and mother,” observes Keating. “As she meets Carter, a certain awareness comes to her about life and she loosens up considerably, which we reflect in her clothing. We’ll see a change from cooler colors at the beginning, to warmer colors toward the end, as well as more casual styles.”
As for Carter’s character, both Kasdan’s and Brody’s love of true vintage clothing, was utilized to express this young man’s physical as well emotional journey to Michigan.
“We wanted to get as far away from what he wears on the O.C. as possible,” says Keating. “We also wanted to take Adam to an older level of clothing, so that he would be playing twenty-five, which is his real age.”
For Grandma Archer, the process of inhabiting that character was a little more involved and carefully constructed. “I like to have a lot of input in the costumes and had really good conversations with Trish Keating, The first thing I asked for was a hump,” laughs Dukakis. “So they built me a little hump, then I asked for all the sleeves to be a shorter so that my little bony arms would stick out. I wore these droopy bright colored crocheted sweaters. I didn’t want her to be drab.”
Transforming the vivacious actress to that of a much older octogenarian also involved over two hours of make-up every morning. Dukakis found the experience rewarding as an actor but also a little unnerving on a personal level, as she explains. “We put latex on my face to create deep wrinkles and I also put a wig on. People say that if you want to know what you’ll look like when you’re old, look at your mother. After this show, I know exactly what I’m going to look like and it’s going to be much worse. It was a really interesting journey.”
Rounding out the talents Kasdan enlisted to make In the Land of Women is editor Carol Littleton. Even at a young age, Littleton says Kasdan’s curiosity and talent as an aspiring filmmaker were selfevident “I’ve known Jon since the day he was born. Ever since he was a little kid, Jon was very tuned in, very smart and very funny. He used to hang out in the cutting room and always have the most extraordinary questions about the process. When he came into the editing room, I’d give him a piece of film to experiment with and after a while he’d suggest cutting a scene in a certain way so I’d stop what I was doing, and do it his way so he could see why something would work or not work.
“The biggest challenge in this film is the mixture of tone. It’s definitely a comedy but there is a serious undertone to the whole movie . a basic humanity we must preserve. It’s this constant changing of gears that is challenging but inspiring for an editor. I’m so impressed by Jon’s talent. The writing is extraordinary and he knows exactly what he wants, that’s very rare, yet alone with someone so young. He’s a very committed and serious filmmaker.”
Production notes provided by Warner Independent Pictures.
In the Land of Women
Starring: Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart, Makenzie Vega, Elena Anaya, Meg Ryan, Danielle Savre, Gia Mantegna, Kelsey Keel
Directed by: Jonathan Kasdan
Screenplay by: Jonathan Kasdan
Release Date: April 20th, 2007
Running Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, thematic elements and language.
Studio: Warner Independent
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $11,052,958 (62.9%)
Foreign: $6,509,113 (37.1%)
Total: $17,562,071 (Worldwide)