CHICAGO – Art imitates Jennifer Aniston for the erstwhile Friends star in her latest vehicle, Friends with Money. The movie, which played to a packed house at Sundance this year, not only references the television vehicle that brought Ms. Aniston stardom but also exploits her current persona as a woman wronged.
When the movie opens, Ms. Aniston’s character, Olivia, is drifting through life in a stoned, passive-
aggressive haze. An actress in her late thirties who was part of a wildly popular television series, Olivia has recently been humiliated by her movie star husband, who left her for another woman. She is so traumatized by this turn of the screw that for several weeks she dresses as a maid and pretends that the real Olivia has left town.
Eventually Olivia becomes desperate to prove to herself and to her public that she is still desirable. She agrees to appear nude in several tastefully done magazine spreads. She also enters into a coy relationship with a cheerfully superficial actor named Vaughn Vincent, with whom she is co-starring in a movie called Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.
The more time she spends on location with Mr. Vincent in Chicago, the more Olivia realizes her pampered West Coast life and her disguise as a maid no longer satisfy her spiritually. She toys with the idea of moving to Chicago and of marrying Mr. Vincent.
While appearing on the Today show to promote the limited release of Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Olivia is asked if there is any truth to the rumor that she and Mr. Vincent are going to be married on Oprah Winfrey’s show in May.
Olivia goes pale with rage, while her Friends with Money co-star Catherine Keener, who has taken on the role of Olivia’s self-appointed bodyguard, threatens to bitch slap the interviewer. Ms. Keener’s passionate defense of Olivia—and her own disintegrating marriage—suggest that Mr. Vincent is not, perhaps, the answer to Olivia’s midlife crisis.
The remainder of Friends with Money is devoted to sorting out the possible answers to Olivia’s question. The ending, which this reviewer certainly didn’t see coming, is complicated by the sudden reappearance of Olivia’s former husband, Tad, who has been reduced to an emasculated shell by the heavily tattooed actress who stole him from Olivia.
Friends with Money is rated R for heavy drug use, erotic language, autoerotic themes, and homoerotic sequences. Seniors over sixty-five admitted at half price during matinees.
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