if you're hoping for the perfect family don't hold your breath

Hollywood pumps out chick flicks faster than you can name the four protagonists of Sex and the City, but it's the rare film that actually captures women in all of their complexity.  Nicole Holofcener's 2001 film Lovely & Amazing is exactly that elusive beast.  Diving deep into the female psyche, Holofcener focuses on three sisters played by Catherine Keener, Emily Mortimer, and Raven Goodwin and their varying relationships with each other and with their mother (the always-sublime Brenda Blethyn).  They are a close-knit family but each character struggles with a set of neuroses that include anger and crippling insecurity, issues that are not unfamiliar to myself and many other women I know.  Holofcener is a keen observer with a great ear for dialogue, and as an added bonus the film features a young Jake Gyllenhaal as Keener's photomat boss.  We're talking Donnie Darko-era Jake Gyllenhaal here, people.