The Virginia Film Festival

with writer/director Tamara Jenkins

Beverly Hills, known for Rodeo Drive, posh hotels, and celebrity mansions, also has a wrong side of the tracks, and there lives the nomadic Abramowitz family. Single father Murray (Alan Arkin) is determined to keep his kids in California’s most glamorous ZIP code, even if only on the fringes. “Furniture is temporary,” he counsels his peripatetic children, “but education is forever.” The focus of this coming-of-age comedy is daughter Vivian, the only girl in the otherwise all male family, who is mortified to discover that with maturity suddenly comes breasts and the attention of boys, both of which are too much for her to handle. Into their already unpredictable life comes sexually liberated Rita (Marisa Tomei), daughter of Murray’s brother Mickey (Carl Reiner), who, to the horror of Vivian’s father, becomes a role model for the budding teenager. Produced by Robert Redford, director Tamara Jenkins’s semi-autobiographical screenplay was developed and refined during Screenwriters and Filmmakers Labs sessions at the Sundance Institute.