The Keanu Reeves Project - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE (2009) - Chris

As stated in at least one previous post, I understand that not all movies are made with me in mind as a target audience.  Because I do not believe myself to be the center of the universe, I am a-ok with this.  This is why when I hate movies that are clearly intended for middle-age white women looking for some escapism, I can appreciate that some people out there will like movies that I in turn will despise with every fiber of my being.

With that said, I have no clue who 2009's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" is intended for.  Was it also made for suburban white women suffering a mid-life crisis?  I guess?  It's really hard to say because I don't know what the fuck the point of this movie was.  And while I did not hate this movie nearly as much as some of the other ones in this project (mainly do due a handful of really good performances), I really don't understand the point of it, what its message is or why it was made.

As always, full spoilers ahead but if you were to tell me that you're ever planning on watching this movie I would call you a damn dirty liar because I'm pretty certain that aside from close friends and relatives of the cast and crew of this movie, nobody has ever heard of this.

At the beginning of the movie we meet the titular Pippa Lee, played by Robin Wright as she sits around a dinner party with her friends and her much older husband Herb played by the always excellent Alan Arkin.  We learn a few things in the intro, most importantly that Pippa and Herb are moving out to a retirement community somewhere in Connecticut because Herb is tired of living in the city.  Plus he's like 75 years old and retiring from a very successful career in the publishing business.  He's also had a few heart attacks and really just needs to take it easy.

I don't want to stay on the opening scene for more than one more paragraph but just two quick things to note here.  First, Pippa's best friend Sandra is there and she is played by Winona Ryder in her third movie alongside Keanu (although they have zero scenes together).  Second, another Keanu Reeves Project returnee is at the table and it's not someone I expected to see in any other movies period let alone any other movies for this project.  Can you guess who?

What if I give you a hint?

It's someone else from "The Matrix" sequels.

How about another hint?

It's a famous African American man.

Did you guess Laurence Fishburne?  Well guess what?  You're fucking wrong.

It's motherfucking Cornel West!  Cornel West, who inexplicably showed up in both "Matrix" sequels, is at the goddamn dinner table!  How?  Why?  Cornel West, who I would listen to philosophize for hours on end is not an actor, he's a goddamn professor formerly from Harvard and Princeton and I have no fucking clue how he ended up in this movie.  At least in "The Matrix" sequels I found an article about how he ended up there but this one is a goddamn mystery especially as this was an indie that only found itself released in about three theaters.

My dude, what ARE you doing here?

And you know what else?  Cornel West isn't going to be the last cast member from "Matrix" sequels to show up in this movie!  If you can guess who the other person is, you win a prize!

From here to the end of the movie we start getting a lot of flashback sequences about Pippa Lee's life growing up so a lot of what a write from here on is probably not in order of how it's shown in the movie but I'm guessing that you don't care.

So we're treated to a scene of Pippa's birth, and it was around this time I started getting some "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" vibes but mercifully I was wrong and this movie did not go down that path.

So Pippa's mother is named Suky and she's played by Maria Bello and we learn early on that she's basically a 50's housewife/speed addict.  The character of Pippa is actually played by three different actresses - very young Pippa, teenage/20 something Pippa played by Blake Lively, and of course Robin Wright.

Back in the present, Pippa and Herb have moved off to the retirement community where she is the youngest person living there by at least a few decades.  She learns that one of her neighbors has a son that is going through some personal problems and temporarily moving in next door.  So Pippa heads over to the party that's being held as a welcoming of sorts for him which is when we meet our shirtless, tattooed hero, Keanu Reeves playing Chris.

I have the same exact Jesus tattoo, except mine is on my back

Oh also, something odd is going on at Pippa and Herb's house as she discovers someone (or something) has broken in at night and eaten a piece of cake.  She assumes it's Herb and that he probably has dementia, so they install a security camera and in a bit of an unexpected TWIST it turns out that it's actually Pippa who has begun sleepwalking and is potentially having a nervous breakdown.

Back in some flashbacks with Blake Lively, we learn more about her childhood and honestly, I couldn't really care about most of this.  It turns out that Pippa started getting into fights with her mother over her drug abuse and we're even treated to a scene reminiscent of the best thing that ever happened on "Saved by the Bell."

So Pippa runs away from home.  First, she moves in with her Aunt Trish who is a bit of a mystery.  Aunt Trish has a "roommate" named Kat played by Julianne more and surprise surprise, they're actually in a relationship together which comes as a real surprise to Pippa.  This is all fine and good until one day Trish goes off to work and Kat coerces Pippa into this weird erotic photo shoot with some of her friends.  Trish comes home early, sees what's going on and kicks Pippa out.

Back in the present, things are getting worse for Pippa.  She's not really enjoying her time living in the retirement community and continues to sleepwalk, winding up at the convenience store where Keanu is now working as a cashier.  She wakes up and he drives her home but she's clearly losing it.  During this time, her burgeoning "platonic" relationship with Keanu seems to be growing although it's pretty evident that she's interested in him a little bit beyond sleepwalking into his store because obviously, he's Keanu Reeves.  

We learn a little bit more about him around this time too - he's unable to tell a lie (because sure that's a character trait I guess) and the reason he left the west coast to move into his parent's retirement community is because he caught his wife cheating on him.  Also he was training to be a Jesuit priest at one point which I guess explains the huge Jesus tattoo on his chest?  Sure, whatever.

Back in another Blake Lively flashback we see how Pippa and Herb actually met: after being thrown out of Aunt Trish's house she starts hanging out with a bunch of transient hippies and there's a montage of her doing drugs and wandering around aimlessly.  I got a real Go Ask Alice vibe here although I don't think they ever turned that piece of propaganda into a movie.

You can't ask Alice anything anymore

Sidenote: when I was around 12 years old my mother had me read Go Ask Alice and I'm still unclear if she was having me read it as a warning against doing drugs, if she just thought it was a good book, or didn't realize it was complete anti-drug propaganda.  Maybe I'll ask her.

Anyway, Pippa and her crew are wandering around a beach one day where she meets Herb who is roughly 30 years older than her.  Herb invites her crew to a party where they all go and hang out and this is where we meet the other "Matrix" cast member who is playing Herb's second wife.  

Have you guessed who it is yet?

If you said Carrie Anne Moss you'd be wrong, it's the return of Monica Bellucci!  As far as I'm concerned, Monica Belluci can show up in all of the rest of the movies in this project (particularly the bad ones).

Oh, hi there

Anyway, we learn that Gigi (Monica Bellucci) is legit crazy and Herb wants out of this marriage.  So despite the fact that Pippa and Herb's relationship starts off as a friendship, it eventually turns sexual because duh, it's Blake Lively and Alan Arkin is apparently the most charming man on the planet.  I guess this part sort of made sense, Pippa is a young 20-something searching for purpose and she has now met a successful, older man in Herb and it just sort of makes sense for her.  I don't know and I don't care.

Sometime after they start carrying on their affair, Herb, his business partner, his wife Gigi and Pippa all have a lunch together where Gigi pulls out a gun, says she knows about the affair (in not so many words) and shoots herself in the head.

This was....unexpected.

Back in the present things are still not going great for Pippa.  After getting thrown out of a pottery class for talking shit to the instructor, Pippa goes to Herb's office which she had found for him early in the movie where she discovers that he's been cheating on her with her friend Sandra (Winona Ryder).  Look, I don't know what Herb has got going on because in this movie he's managed to bone down with Blake Lively/Robin Wright, Monica Bellucci and Winona Ryder.  I mean, I've never found Alan Arkin to be a particularly attractive man but he's certainly got some sort of magic with the ladies.  I suppose it doesn't hurt that in the context of the movie he's totally loaded.

So he blames the affair on Pippa for reasons I couldn't begin to remember or care about, so she uses this as a reason to go sneak into Keanu Reeves' bedroom and make out with him.

Shortly thereafter, Pippa discovers Herb unconscious on the kitchen floor as he's probably just had his third massive heart attack.  We wind up at the hospital where Herb lies on a bed, surrounded by his wife Pippa and their two kids who I haven't even mentioned yet because seriously, who could give a shit?  Oh, and Winona is out in the waiting room as well because she made an incredibly half-hearted attempt at suicide (don't worry, she'll be just fine).  

Don't worry, the movie is almost over

Herb is brain dead so the family makes the decision to take him off of life support and Herb dies.  Yay.

After Herb's death, Pippa meets back up with Keanu and they have sex.  No wait, he just fingers her in the back of a truck because sure, that's sexy I guess.

Back at her house, she tells her kids that she's "going on a trip" and they should organize the memorial service and sell whatever things they don't want to keep.  Herb's been cheating on her so she sure as shit isn't going to organize anything for him.  She hops in a truck with Keanu and they head west and the movie ends.

Generally speaking, I did not care for this movie but I'm also not the target audience.  I feel like it had a story to tell, I just don't really know what the point of it was or who it was for.  

Some scattered thoughts:

*Another movie featuring multiple May/December romances - this one has Alan Arkin and, well, everyone but it's also got Robin Wright and Keanu who also probably have about a 15 year age gap.  What's with Keanu playing the younger man?  This has now happened in this movie, "Something's Gotta Give," "Dangerous Liasons," and "The Prince of Pennsylvania."  Now that Keanu is in his 50's, if he keeps this up in the 2020's I'm worried we're going to find him in on-screen relationships with Judy Dench or Maggie Smith.  I don't want to watch that.  

*This actually makes the fourth movie that Monica Bellucci has appeared in with Keanu Reeves - "The Matrix Reloaded," "The Matrix Revolutions," "Bram Stoker's Dracula," and now this.  It's also the third movie with Wynona.  I don't know, I find this shit interesting.

*While this is clearly a vehicle for Robin Wright, I was pleasantly surprised at how much screen time Keanu had in this.  I had gone in with the assumption he wasn't going to be in this much but he's got his fair share of scenes and makes the most with what he's given.

*I'm getting a little tired about watching movies about charmed white people.  I don't think there are many if any left like this in Keanu's filmography, especially as we start making more of a transition to action films.

*At some point in the movie a dog is hit by a car (off-screen) and Keanu tries to save its life.  John Wick would have been proud.

Don't worry, not his dog and this movie has a real lack of Russian gangsters

Box Office Information: $337,000 on an unknown budget.  Like I said, this movie was not exactly a smash hit nor do I think it was meant to be.  With that said, I always wonder how movies like this get made on seemingly shoestring budgets with some high profile performers.  I mean, this thing has Robin Wright, Julianne Moore, Keanu, Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Blake Lively and....Cornel West.  Seriously, what the fuck is Cornel West doing in this?

Rotten Tomatoes: 69% Critic/50% Audience.  I'm a little surprised that any critics even saw this thing in the first place given it's incredibly limited release.

My Movie Rating: 4.5/10.  I've already stated this movie was not made for me but it's not unwatchable or anything.  Plus, Monica Bellucci is in it.

One more picture of Monica Bellucci isn't going to hurt anyone

Keanu Rating: I barely discussed him in my recap.  While Keanu's presence in this movie was more than I expected, he barely registered an impression on me.  Once again, he plays a stoic character which is where he's often at his best and for that I'm going to give him a 7.

Up Next: A movie called "Henry's Crime," I don't know what this is either but hopefully the crime isn't making a shitty movie about entitled white people.