Friends With Money

written & directed by Nicole Holofcener

A romantic comedy/drama exploring relationships between three married couples and their one single friend, Olivia (Jennifer Aniston). Olivia, working as a maid, feels the ‘odd one out’ amongst her rich friends, attending wealthy charity dinners on invite whilst, during the day, cleaning and going round shops getting free samples.

We get to know the characters individually, as couples and as a group of friends. The bits I enjoyed most were the trips home from a get-together in the car, as the ladies gossiped and the men, generally, had no bad word to say about their friends. For the first view scenes I was waiting for something dramatic to happen. I was wondering what the film was about when I found myself quite enjoying the gossip and sneak peeks into the character’s personal lives.

Their lives were interesting because they were all looking for something they didn’t have that one of their friends had. Olivia was looking to get away from loneliness and wanted to find a purpose to her life. She looked up to her friends who seemed to have that. We found out that, scratching away at the surface, they weren’t all that sorted themselves. A very poignant example was a couple, Christine and David, who, at the end, separated, looking for the perfect relationship and perfect life.

Although wondering what the film was about most of the time, some of the scenes do stick in my head. Olivia’s character was portrayed as the ‘sad’ figure in the film; she was poor, worked as a maid and was made to share the little money she had with a guy who ‘clung to her’. I saw in her someone who was happy around her friends, realising she had faults and in her friends minds was poor and in a menial job – but she seemed real. I guess walking round shops looking for free samples is something I would do!! She wasn’t able to hide her ‘faults’ whilst her friends had ‘faults’ in secret.

The way the characters were developed was superb. We see them in private as well as in public. We get to know the people within as well as with-out.

The couple who seemed genuinely, perfectly happy were the rich couple. He worked, she stayed at home with the kids. They talked, they loved (their kids as well as each other), they had a beautiful house, were comfortable with their wealth, knew how to give it away as well as receive. They seemed to genuinely care about their friends.

This is a lovely film that requires the patience of a girl. The gossip is rather naughty, yet interesting and the story of the different lives gripping. Well worth a watch.