/ 1 June 2001

Strong and sexy

The notion of people’s lives overlapping each other’s has almost become a genre on its own. Examples such as Short Cuts by Robert Altman and Love’s a Bitch by Alejandro González Iñárritu come to mind. Though not always high on drama, as the latter was, they do create some tension about how and when individuals will cross paths.

In Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, we have six women who live solitary existences in the San Fernando Valley of California. And, regardless of what many idealists say, the casting does say a great deal about the quality of the script, if not the film: Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart, Holly Hunter, Katy Baker and rising star Amy Brennaman.

What makes Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her even more unusual, apart from its title, is that it’s written and directed by a man. In addition, the man used to be a cameraman, a switch that is not always successful.

But from the opening sequence, in which Glenn Close plays a doctor, we know we’re in the company of a talented writer/director. Close is under made-up to show her freckles and comes across as a quietly desperate woman, but hardly weak or unattractive.

In fact, all six women are shown to be downright strong and sexy at their various ages, which implies an indictment: why the hell aren’t there any strong and sexy men around? So these women carry on with their lives, which involve a great deal of caring, whether it is of sons, lovers, mothers or sisters. But threading through their lives is the understated death of one woman who got to breaking point and committed suicide.

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her has a slow but never boring pace, partially because it has such wonderful situations and dialogue. And what it does gently remind us is that love and wisdom can come from the most unexpected quarters – even, if not especially, the dead.

Director Rodrigo Garcia may not like to be reminded of this, but then he has no reason to stand back for his father, Nobel laureate Gabriel Garci­a Márquez, either. This is a work of quiet, confident and intelligent beauty.