Private Life (2018, Tamara Jenkins) (Patreon)

Starts out as the Casino of fertility struggles, detailing every step of a complicated, laborious (ha!) process. You don't need press notes to recognize that it reflects lived experience, but Jenkins expertly threads the needle, finding ways to make her ordeal both scrupulously accurate and enormously entertaining. And while she's a bit clumsy introducing Sadie—I paused to make a note reading "What happened to adrift college girl?" right before she finally resurfaced (though in hindsight I'm ashamed that I didn't foresee where that was headed; still, not sure it needed setting up)—the narrative that finally emerges, in which Rachel and Richard become surrogate parents to their potential egg donor (nicely foreshadowed by a heartbreaking flashback that's essentially fellow 2018 Sundance selection Nancy in miniature), is inspired. Mostly, though, this is a movie that I love for its surfeit of cherishable small details. Rachel furrowing her brow when Richard starts praising another possible donor's sexy body, and Jenkins allowing Hahn to be out of focus at that moment. The recognition that you can't have a public argument in New York, even on a side street, without having a bunch of strangers walk right through the middle of it. Sadie's dramatic news and the family dinner's consequent implosion not deterring the alcoholic uncle or whoever he was from plowing ahead with giving thanks for his sobriety, complete with reference to the recovering addict's "Bermuda Triangle" (which I had to google). Casual, loud-and-proud references to Wendy Wasserstein, Harold Brodkey, Drugstore Cowboy—stuff that these semi-privileged characters would know and care about. Acknowledging that there's such a thing as being semi-privileged! Deflating the air mattress—a perfect amalgam of exposition and metaphor. And of course the line that endears this movie to every film critic: "She's got a B.A. in journalism and cinema studies. No wonder she's selling her eggs, she can't get a job." Sadie landing at Yaddo is perhaps a bit much, and this is one of those cases where I predicted exactly what the final shot would be (albeit only a few minutes in advance), but as Private Life argues/insists/ruefully accepts, it's the journey, and its unexpected byways, that really matter.