Middle-aged Adele August leaves her husband and her small Wisconsin town and moves to Beverly Hills. The title "Anywhere But Here" sums up Adele's view of Wisconsin, and of small-town Wisconsin in particular; she would prefer to live almost anywhere than carry on living in a place she regards as stultifyingly dull and conformist. Moreover, she does not move to Beverly Hills alone. She forces her reluctant teenage daughter Ann to accompany her.
The film was made in 1999, meaning that Adele is of that generation which grew up in the sixties and regarded California as the Last Frontier to which they could head and live their own version of the American Dream. The trouble is, she starts living it thirty years too late. She has no real idea what she intends to do in Beverly Hills; just being there seems to be enough. When she gets there she drifts from one job to another, and has an unsatisfactory love affair. Her main ambition is centred upon Ann, whom she hopes will become a Hollywood actress. Adele is played by Susan Sarandon, who three years later was to make another film, "The Banger Sisters", about a member of the sixties' generation hitting middle age. In that film her character, Vinnie, is a former rock groupie turned conformist middle-class suburban housewife who reverts to her old wild ways after meeting an old friend.
"Anywhere But Here" is not a film with great deal of plot, but as Roger Ebert pointed out its interest lies in the characterisation and the performances. The relationship between Adele and Ann resembles that (albeit in a less extreme form) that between Edina and Saffron in the British television comedy "Absolutely Fabulous", an eccentric, extroverted middle-aged mother who behaves like a teenager and an introverted, small-c conservative daughter who behaves like a middle-aged woman. The film has been called a coming-of-age drama, but whereas Ann might come of age, Adele seems to be going through the opposite process, that of immaturing with age. Ann never wanted to come to Beverly Hills in the first place, and would have preferred to stay in Wisconsin with her stepfather, to whom she is close. (She has not seen her biological father since she was a young child). She has little interest in an acting career, and certainly none in Adele's plan to turn her into a Hollywood goddess, preferring to pursue an academic career at Brown University, a prestigious East Coast Ivy League college.
Sarandon is excellent here, far better than she was to be in "The Banger Sisters", where she is reasonably good as Vinnie the stuffy suburbanite, but ludicrous and embarrassing when she tries to portray Vinnie reverting to her previous self. I think that the difference is that Vinnie was played as a caricature whereas Adele, although she may have her own ludicrous side, is nevertheless a recognisable human being. Sarandon allegedly insisted that Natalie Portman be cast as her daughter, informing the producers that she would not be interested in the project otherwise. If this story is true, Sarandon's stance certainly paid off, because Portman succeeds brilliantly in rising to the challenge of portraying a teenager who has to play second fiddle to an eccentric, over-the-top mother and yet without making Ann seem dowdy or boring. (It helps that, even at 18, Portman was already a striking beauty). The result is a human drama which is frequently interesting and at times touching. 7/10.
The film was made in 1999, meaning that Adele is of that generation which grew up in the sixties and regarded California as the Last Frontier to which they could head and live their own version of the American Dream. The trouble is, she starts living it thirty years too late. She has no real idea what she intends to do in Beverly Hills; just being there seems to be enough. When she gets there she drifts from one job to another, and has an unsatisfactory love affair. Her main ambition is centred upon Ann, whom she hopes will become a Hollywood actress. Adele is played by Susan Sarandon, who three years later was to make another film, "The Banger Sisters", about a member of the sixties' generation hitting middle age. In that film her character, Vinnie, is a former rock groupie turned conformist middle-class suburban housewife who reverts to her old wild ways after meeting an old friend.
"Anywhere But Here" is not a film with great deal of plot, but as Roger Ebert pointed out its interest lies in the characterisation and the performances. The relationship between Adele and Ann resembles that (albeit in a less extreme form) that between Edina and Saffron in the British television comedy "Absolutely Fabulous", an eccentric, extroverted middle-aged mother who behaves like a teenager and an introverted, small-c conservative daughter who behaves like a middle-aged woman. The film has been called a coming-of-age drama, but whereas Ann might come of age, Adele seems to be going through the opposite process, that of immaturing with age. Ann never wanted to come to Beverly Hills in the first place, and would have preferred to stay in Wisconsin with her stepfather, to whom she is close. (She has not seen her biological father since she was a young child). She has little interest in an acting career, and certainly none in Adele's plan to turn her into a Hollywood goddess, preferring to pursue an academic career at Brown University, a prestigious East Coast Ivy League college.
Sarandon is excellent here, far better than she was to be in "The Banger Sisters", where she is reasonably good as Vinnie the stuffy suburbanite, but ludicrous and embarrassing when she tries to portray Vinnie reverting to her previous self. I think that the difference is that Vinnie was played as a caricature whereas Adele, although she may have her own ludicrous side, is nevertheless a recognisable human being. Sarandon allegedly insisted that Natalie Portman be cast as her daughter, informing the producers that she would not be interested in the project otherwise. If this story is true, Sarandon's stance certainly paid off, because Portman succeeds brilliantly in rising to the challenge of portraying a teenager who has to play second fiddle to an eccentric, over-the-top mother and yet without making Ann seem dowdy or boring. (It helps that, even at 18, Portman was already a striking beauty). The result is a human drama which is frequently interesting and at times touching. 7/10.