Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) appears to have a
perfect life: a beautiful home in Connecticut, a lovely
12-year old daughter, a successful Wall Street honcho
husband, and a part-time career as a designer for her
father’s clothing company. Mary not only seems to have it
all, she seems to do it all: whether it’s planting
perennials in the garden; following in her mother’s
footsteps as co-chair of a Central Park women’s committee;
or personally doing the cooking for a benefit luncheon,
despite having the full-time help of her beloved housekeeper
Maggie, (Cloris Leachman) and a nanny, Uta (Tilly Scott
Pederson). If she’s a little frazzled at times, who can
blame her?
One thing Mary can always count on is the wonderful company
of her girlfriends, like her best pal, style maven Sylvie
Fowler (Annette Bening). A woman of impeccable chic and
rapier wit, Sylvie is happily single and at the top of her
field as the newly-installed editor of the venerable women’s
magazine CACHET. Mary and Sylvie’s close-knit circle also
includes Edie Cohen (Debra Messing), an eccentric mother-hen
to her girlfriends as well as her ever-expanding brood of
children. And then there’s humor essayist Alex Fisher (Jada
Pinkett Smith), a glamorous ladies’
lady with her own special gift for telling people the last
thing they want to hear.
But for these longtime friends, all hell is about to break
loose. The trouble starts at in the Beauty Salon at Saks
Fifth Avenue, of all places, where Sylvie sits down with the
hot new manicurist in town, Tanya (Debi Mazar). Within
moments, chatty Tanya is spilling the beans about the
store’s resident gold-digger, a perfume “spritzer girl”
named Crystal Allen (Eva Mendes) who has landed one very
big, married fish: a Wall Street tycoon named Stephen
Haines. The anguished Sylvie finds herself in a dilemma, one
that soon spreads to her girlfriends: what, if anything, to
tell Mary? But before the friends can come to an agreement,
Mary -- who has just been fired from her job by her own
father -- ends up getting a manicure at Saks. From Tanya.
Mary’s female comrades close ranks around her, each offering
strong opinions about what she should do. Ultimately, Mary
decides to heed the advice of her mother Catherine (Candice
Bergen), an irreverent parent who has grappled with any
number of life issues, from straying husbands to aging.
Together, Mary, Catherine and Mary’s daughter Molly (India
Ennenga) take an all-girl break at Catherine’s summer
cottage in Maine.
Meanwhile, Sylvie is having her own troubles at work, where
her efforts to remake CACHET have yet to yield much success.
With her dream job in danger, Sylvie tries to recruit famed
gossip columnist Bailey Smith (Carrie Fisher) to write for
the magazine. But Bailey – who is penning an exposé of Wall
Street marriages -- drives a hard bargain, with a nasty
price: Mary’s privacy. Backed into a corner, Sylvie chooses
career over her best friend.
For Mary, Sylvie’s betrayal is the cruelest blow of all. She
cuts Sylvie out of her life and embarks on an extended
period of soul-searching, with detours for sloppiness and
sugar. Eventually, she lands at a women’s health camp high
in the Berkshires, where she meets Leah “The Countess”
Miller (Bette Midler), a flamboyant, reefer-loving Hollywood
agent, whose buoyantly pragmatic philosophy proves
inspirational.
Returning to New York, Mary begins to reconnect with the
woman she has always been, but lost sight of in trying to be
all things to all people. She finds a fresh clarity about
what, and who, matters most to her in this world. That
understanding will prove crucial on the day she comes face
to face with the person who hurt her most deeply, but whose
absence she feels most keenly: Sylvie. And so it is with a
new sense of certainty that Mary Haines strides forward into
her new life. She knows what she wants, and with a little
help from all the women in her life, she’s going to
get it, too.
© Picturehouse. All
rights reserved
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