Because hers is a secondary character I feel that it never really gets picked up on, but how great a choice was Leslie Mann to play Nicky's mother? When you see the woman she's based on, the mad Andrea Arlington, you see just how spot on Leslie is for the role. I loved her!
shareGreat portrayal of the new "ideology" of spiritual narcissism...
The way upper middle class and aspirational consumers around the world try to justify to themselves the emptiness of their contemporary consumerised lives... "Energy", the secret, pseudo reikei, etc... all in service of one's self, but "branded" in a reality TV celeb culture way to be about the world...
Yeah, she was perfect, the scene was perfect.
This brings back memories... remember that family briefly had a reality TV show? Well I watched about ten minutes of the show, and what I saw was reproduced for "TBR". This girls were "home schooled", and their "lessons" consisted of the vapid mother blathering about The Secret and having everyone medicate, just like in the movie.
And I sat there thinking "But what about mathematic, science, history, biology, civics, all those things that kids actually need to learn? How does she expect those girls to be functioning adults, how can they hold jobs if they don't know anything and can't do anything?". And then I looked hard at the mother, and thought "Ah. She doesn't expect them to hold jobs, she expects them to do what she did and find rich men." And then I changed the channel.
In retrospect, it's nice to see that at least one of those kids tried to find another line of work.