What exactly does a woman want? Even a genius like Freud couldn't answer that one, but that doesn't stop Hollywood from gleefully pitching their own answers, time and time again. Sadly, they're almost always something routine and familiar, dribbling with prosaic food-court banality: a man, a family, a wedding, a divorce, a relationship . . . yawn.
More of the same happens in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee." The Japanese-release title can be translated as: "The Love Diary of a Fifty Year Old" ("50 Sai no Renaihakusho"), which strikes me as one helluva depressing way to put it. On the other hand, it's truer to the movie's actual content than the original English title, which slyly suggests Pippa has a lot more to her than just the same old, same old.
The story opens with a dinner party where the titular Pippa (Robin Wright Penn) — approaching 50 and the epitome of tranquil beauty — is serving lamb followed by creme brulee, to an adoring array of guests. One of them is Sam (Mike Binder), who lovingly calls Pippa "an enigma, a mystery." In a voiceover narrative, Pippa quips back: "I'm tired of being an engima. I wanna be known." This sounds promising: Perhaps Pippa has multiple identities and she's simultaneously deploying and hiding behind them all.