In her decades-spanning but only sporadically fruitful career, Tamara Jenkins has aptly demonstrated that she’s not only willing to address the most heartbreaking of mundanities with humor and compassion, but she’ll stick it out to do so as well. “Dementia and infertility aren’t sexy at pitch meetings,” the writer-director admitted to IndieWire back in January, which explains in part why 2007’s “The Savages” spent years in development hell, and why her long-awaited follow-up, “Private Life,” was spinning its wheels indefinitely at Amazon Studios before Netflix threw the project a rope.
Inspired by Jenkins’ own struggles with infertility, ‘Private Life’ eventually premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival to an enthusiastic response. Jenkins has always had a remarkable way with her actors, and sure enough, The Playlist’s review singles out Kayli Carter and Kathryn Hahn as two of the film’s biggest assets. While this looks to be a breakout role for the former, the movie’s early reception bodes especially well for anyone still waiting for Hahn’s dramatic film roles to catch up with her meatiest TV work.
Here’s the official synopsis:
The new film from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Tamara Jenkins (The Savages, Slums of Beverly Hills), PRIVATE LIFE is the bracingly funny and moving story of Richard (Academy Award-nominee Paul Giamatti) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn), a couple in the throes of infertility who try to maintain their marriage as they descend deeper and deeper into the insular world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption. After the emotional and economic upheaval of in vitro fertilization, they’re at the end of their middle-aged rope, but when Sadie (breakout newcomer Kayli Carter), a recent college drop out, re-enters their life, things begin to look up.
As well as Hahn and Carter, “Private Life” stars Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, Denis O’Hare, Emily Robinson, John Carroll Lynch, Desmin Borges, and Francesca Root-Dodson. Jenkins is directing her own script.
Netflix is handling distribution, with a release date of October 5.
Here’s the first trailer:
