November 25, 2014 -- This is a comedy-drama about a woman recovering from a divorce trying to fit in to a new situation, moving in with a family who has a young son. She gets drunk, smokes pot, has casual sex and wild mood swings. She is just holding on before she gets around to getting on with her life. Her presence has an unexpected impact on the woman of the house.

Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air”) plays the slightly out of control Jenny, who moves in with her brother, Jeff (played by Joe Swanberg of “Drinking Buddies” who also wrote and directed this film) his wife, Kelly (Melanie Lynskey of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) and their two year old son, Jude (Jude Swanberg, son of the director) after her divorce.

Jenny starts causing trouble right away, getting drunk and out of control at a party with her friend, Carson (Lena Dunham, creator of the “Girls” TV series). Jenny passes out at the party and Carson has to call Jeff to get Jenny home from the party in the middle of the night. Kelly worries that Jenny is too irresponsible to be a babysitter for the family. Jeff asks her to give Jenny another chance.

Jenny starts seeing the family babysitter. She also buys pot from him and smokes it in her brother's house. One night, Jenny gets drunk and burns a pizza in the oven, filling the house with smoke. She clearly has issues, but she is allowed to hang around, and improbably becomes friends with Kelly, encouraging her to pursue her dream of writing.

Kelly pursuades Jeff to give her more time to write and she sets up in an office rented for a film (probably this one) and gets to work writing, joined by Jenny and Carson. Jenny persuades Kelly to write a sexy romantic novel, with the impractical idea that it will be easy to write and will make a lot of money. The three women have a lot of fun coming up with new ideas for the book. After the credits, there is an additional scene of the three women talking about their sexy book creation, and clearly having fun doing it. I think this is basically an outtake added to the end of the film for fun.

While Anna Kendrick and Lena Dunham are the best known movie stars in this film, the little kid, Jude Swanberg, steals the show. This cute little kid is a natural clown and he loves to show off for the camera. In one scene, he takes an ordinary piece of wrapping paper and makes a whole comic scene out of it.

While the film veers close to drama at times, it is basically a very light comedy. There is not a large story arc here. It is more like a slice of life. All these characters seem very realistic. Nothing happens that is not believable. It is nice to see Anna Kendrick turn it loose in this movie. She usually plays characters more prim and proper, but in this role, she stretches her range and goes way out on the ragged edge of emotional meltdown.

This looks like a low-budget independent film. Almost all the shots are interiors with very few locations. The writing and acting are solid. It isn't a particularly ambitious or groundbreaking film, but it is fun. This film rates a B.

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