Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 6 OctOber 2018
11 years later, Tamara Jenkins returns with 'Private Life'

By JAKE COYLE "Tamara, as a director,
Associated Press she's a channeler. She's
NEW YORK (AP) — Tamara definitely feeling whatever
Jenkins has had time to you're feeling at the same
consider why there have amount of intensity. She
been such long stretches can't help it. She will feel
between her movies. Her alongside of you," Hahn
latest, "Private Life ," star- says. "We both understood
ring Kathryn Hahn and Paul (Hahn's character) Rachel
Giamatti as a New York on a pretty deep level. We
couple struggling with in- kind of mind-melded."
fertility treatments, comes Both Hahn and Giamatti
11 years after her last one, have won raves for their
the Oscar-nominated "The soulful, connected perfor-
Savages." mances, though numerous
For Jenkins' fans, such pro- critics have called Hahn's
longed absences (it was disarmingly naked perfor-
nine years following her mance her best yet.
1998 debut, "The Slums of "It's not lost on me that I feel
Beverly Hills") are a disap- most seen as a performer
pointment. For others, it's and as an artist by women
a prime example of how filmmakers. That is for damn
the movie industry doesn't This image released by Netflix shows actor Paul Giamatti, left, with filmmaker Tamara Jenkins on sure," says Hahn, who's cur-
value its female filmmakers the set of "Private Life." rently prepping an HBO se-
like its male ones. For Jen- Associated Press ries directed by Nicole Ho-
kins, it's more complicated. lofcener.
"When you're in it, you're and I realized Patty Jenkins in that time period — the centered on the couple; Jenkins, 56, has regularly
like: Is it me or is it them? ('Wonder Woman') hadn't experience of which even- Giamatti compares it to turned pieces from her life
What makes that prob- made a movie and Debra tually led her to writing "Pri- "Waiting for Godot." into her films. "The Slums of
lem, in terms of myself?" Granik ('Leave No Trace') vate Life." And then she's "People ask me what it's Beverly Hills," about a tran-
Jenkins wonders. "When I hadn't made a feature for meticulous — "novel-y," she about and I say it's a movie sient, lower-middle class
was at Sundance people years. So I'm not alone." says — in her writing pro- about marriage," says Jen- Jewish family in Beverly Hills,
kept asking me that ques- Still, Jenkins adds, there are cess; she estimates it took kins. "It's obviously on a very was inspired by her own
tion. I kept saying, 'Yeah, I other factors, too. She and two years to write "Private specific journey that they're 1970s youth. "The Savages,"
know. I'm a loser. How is it her husband, Jim Taylor (Al- Life," some of that time on. But there was some- which starred Laura Linney
possible 11 years went by?' exander Payne's frequent spent at the upstate New thing so existential about (she was Oscar nominated,
And then I looked around writing partner), had a kid York artists' colony Yadoo that problem for them. It's as was Jenkins' script) and
(which also figures into the so primal." Philip Seymour Hoffman,
film). As an on-screen couple, chronicled two siblings
"It's also a desire to not nec- Hahn and Giamatti are re- dealing with an elderly par-
essarily make any old thing. markably attuned to each ent with dementia. It too
There are a lot of things out other, especially consider- was partly autobiographi-
there that might be make- ing they didn't know each cal.
able but aren't good. There other before the film. Jen- Jenkins initially dismissed
are a lot of really bad mov- kins set up a meeting at her own trials having a
ies," Jenkins said in a re- Giamatti's Brooklyn home kid as decent movie fod-
cent interview. "And I never for the two to meet and der ("I was like: No way! I'll
have had an easy time get acquainted. never do that! Gross!") only
trying to get these things "I feel something about to eventually see the dra-
made. Like 'The Savages,' this movie that I don't feel matic possibilities of a very
which took place in a nurs- about many things I've common experience.
ing home, nobody wants been in. I really love it, and "There's the sort of famous
to make that movie. This is a lot of it is those two wom- thing that people say: Why
different but, still, it doesn't en I got to work with," Gia- don't you just adopt? —
sound sexy on paper." matti said by phone during 'just' in italics, like adopting
"Private Life," which pre- a break from shooting "Bil- is such an easy thing to do,
mieres on Netflix and in lions." like you can just walk out
select theaters Friday, is in- "I wish Tamara was able and get one of those kids
deed more than its synop- to be more prolific. I don't over there," says Jenkins. "If
sis. Hahn and Giamatti play know how much it is her you're trying to have a kid
downtown New York cre- wanting to take that much and it's not happening the
atives reaching middle age time with something. I don't old-fashioned, regular way,
and going through one fer- think so. I think she'd like to all of the routes of having a
tility trial after another. But be more prolific," Giamatti kid are really complicated,
in Jenkins' hands, "Private adds. "But she's incredibly morally and emotionally
Life" is a caustically funny, devoted to the very singu- and economically and so-
painfully intimate, medi- lar thing she wants to do." cially. It's all very compli-
calized examination of, as Hahn says that Jenkins dur- cated."
she says, "a marriage in the ing shooting is as passion- One complication Jenkins
middle." Though much of ate about a scene being would rather not encoun-
the plot follows a struggle acted as she was when ter: another long wait until
to conceive, it's ultimately writing it. her next film.q