Hanging Up 2000, Rated PG-13 CTHV

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Starring Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow, et al. Released to DVD on June 27, 2000.

When you think about it, writer/director Nora Ephron has made an enormous career for herself by impressing people that she is a writer/director who understands women's issues and can write realistic relationship movies. When you get down to it though, in the last 12 years, Ephron has been attached to just one good movie, When Harry Met Sally... (and she didn't even direct this '89 hit, Rob Reiner did). Here in Hanging Up, Ephron is at it again, crafting another supposedly observant and funny movie about life in the '90's. As the ever so subtle title suggests, Hanging Up is about the impact of cell-phones on our everyday lives, specifically three blonde, attractive sisters (Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow) living in California who communicate almost exclusively through the use of their omni-present Nokias. Upon initial contact with this material, I began to wonder how Ephron would be able to overcome the seeming stumbling block that suggested that most audiences wouldn't want to watch photogenic actresses just talking on phones. The short answer is: she didn't. Boring, inflated and arrogantly pompous, Hanging Up is a disaster.