Family values get a workout in this clash of generations and sexual mores, played out against the backdrop of L.A.'s Laurel Canyon, longtime refuge of the moneyed counterculture. Newly engaged doctors-in-training Sam (Christian Bale) and Alex (Kate Beckinsale), straight-arrow overachievers, move to California so Sam can do his residence at an L.A. hospital and Alex can finish up her dry-as-dust dissertation on fruit flies. They run headlong into a one-woman tornado of libertine attitudes in record-producer Jane (Frances McDormand), who happens to be Sam's mom. Jane's offer to let them use her Laurel Canyon house seemed ideal when they thought she'd be somewhere else,...
Released:
2003
Rated:
R
Length:
103 mins