My initial disappointment about missing out on the Berlin Film Festival has certainly been helped by the repeated suggestion that almost everything showing there sucks.

But there was one film for which I had placed my selfish travel wants aside and hoped would be great anyway. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee features the first role with any real potential my beloved Winona Ryder had been given in almost a decade (sure, there was A Scanner Darkly, but she was animated and all so it doesnt 100% count, and while The Ten was fun, it certainly wasn’t up to par with my Winonaspectations).

Sundance after Sundance, we’ve watched every single movie she makes crash, burn and fail to get distribution (The Darwin Awards, The Last Word, The Informers), or just seen films shes made fail to get seen by anyone at all (Sex and Death 101, Water Pills), and probably with good reason.

But when I heard of her casting in Pippa, alongside Julianne Moore, Maria Bello and Robin Wright Penn, among others, my heart skipped: “She’s coming back! After basically wasting the entire ‘00s, probably because any decent film wouldn’t risk insuring her crazy ass, someone was taking a chance on her, and she was going to hit it out of the ballpark and return to form!” Continue reading The Return of Winona Ryder