Once-boyish Matthew Broderick plays a 43-year-old L.A. writer- producer. His drinking and betting already sidelined his TV career once. Relapse is in the offing. His marriage likewise teeters on mid-season cancellation. He decides to make things right by sneaking a check from his wife’s checkbook (torn from the middle where she’s not supposed to notice), driving to Vegas, finding his 20-year-old hooker niece (Brittany Snow) and hauling her to a Malibu rehab center that’s “in People Magazine every other week.” Denial is in the air. The press notes call this “a hilarious and heartbreaking autobiographical comedy,” and the hilarity and heartbreak may be the personal property of writer-director Peter Tolan, one of the creators, writers and directors of TV’s therapy-tilted “Rescue Me.” “Finding Amanda” may work out more of Tolan’s issues, but it’s a dour, indulgent ride for anyone outside his immediate circle of enablers and sponsors. With Maura Tierney, Steve Coogan and Peter Facinelli. (Tolan also co-wrote “Analyze This” and “Analyze That,” as well as “The Larry Sanders Show.”) 90m. (Bill Stamets)
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
