Lovely & Amazing

Here is a movie that knows its women, listens to them, doesn't give them a pass, allows them to be real: It's a rebuke to the shallow "Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

Lord knows how Holofcener got the performance she did out of Goodwin, but the child actor's Annie, rude and unmanageable, is an extraordinarily rich and complicated figure.

Lovely & Amazing goes to the heart -- and face, and skin -- of a subject that's sure to ring true with women, and may even educate men.

About how women see themselves in terms of bodies, age and careers, but without all the "you go girl" tripe crammed into so many other movies of this ilk.

It is at times serious and at times very funny. But it is always perceptive, and that quality, more than any other, is what makes it worth a recommendation.

In this era of fluffy, big-budget Hollywood "chick flicks", it's pretty refreshing to find a film that genuinely deals with women, family, self-image and survival.

Everyone in this chintz-covered world is a little creepy.