Diane

DIANE is an very realistically observed, emotionally nuanced drama of sixty-something Boomer women living in small-town up-upstate New York, Western Massachusetts, or thereabouts, and centered around an Oscar calibre performance by Mary Kay Place. Although the viewer may be captivated by the spell of the film's flow of personal and interpersonal detail, a thematic core may be abstracted from it; and some nice formal flourishes enrich the film. Thematically, the film illuminates the individual and group altruism of its world of Sixtyish Boomer women, a kind of unspoken sisterhood of social nurture. Formally, the emotional density of its many micro dramas is periodically offset by lovely scenes of calm country highway driving. Commercially, one fears that the film may suffer from a lack of conventional "hooks," but it's appeal -- word of it accurately and well spread -- should be intense for the sizable audience of Boomer women, not to mention alert demographically diverse cinophiles.