In the Land of Women

Rebounding from a broken romance, a young L.A. writer (Adam Brody) moves to Michigan to stay with his grandmother (Olympia Dukakis), where he becomes involved with a neighbor (Meg Ryan) and her teenage daughter (Kristen Stewart). Writer-director Jonathan Kasdan seems to have inherited his father Lawrence’s knack for creating sympathetic characters and giving them clever, articulate dialogue (“Sofia dumped me.” “When did this happen?” “About an hour and a half ago. I’ve been stuck in traffic.”). He also gets comfortable performances from his cast, even as his script touches on a range of basic themes—teen disaffection, facing breast cancer, the wisdom of the elderly, the sensitivity of the young. It’s all a bit too pat, and minor characters are drawn in formulaic shorthand, but it goes down easily.