Five Great Summer Boomer Movies

If Bridesmaids didn’t do it for you this summer, don’t despair. There are a few more movies that we can look forward to as good bets for escape.

Snowflower And The Secret Fan

The perfect movie to see with a girlfriend. Set in 19th century China, it is the story of a lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code for communicating to avoid the rigid cultural norms imposed on women. They pledge to be “sisters” for 10,000 years, and it does seem as though the friendship is carried down through generations. In the present we see their descendants struggling to maintain their friendship as well as other relationships and their careers. In order to not to lose each other, they have to discover the secret of the “women’s language” that their ancestors used. Opening July 15.

A Little Help Jenna Fischer, the sweetheart from the television show The Office, as dental hygienist Laura Pehlke, is having doubts about her marriage before her husband (Chris O’Donnell) suddenly dies of a heart abnormality. When 12-year-old her son tells his new schoolmates that his father died as a 9/11 hero Laura becomes caught up in that lie, as well as the lie covering up her husband’s affair. Add to this Laura’s growing mutual attraction to her sister’s husband, and you have the type of mess many of us find ourselves in despite our best efforts to live a normal life. Opening July 22.

Crazy Stupid Love Another alum of The Office, Steve Carell, stars in Crazy Stupid Love. Your standard boring married male, Steve’s character Cal learns that his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) has been cheating on him. Luckily, Cal runs into a ladies man played by Ryan Gosling who can “teach” Cal to be attractive. Watching Cal’s transformation and dating, we know, somehow, he will find his way back to his true love. When the handsome Gosling meets his match, another redhead (Emma Stone), we get to see him suddenly become the awkward boyfriend as he falls in “crazy stupid love.” Opening July 29.

The Help Emma Stone (from Crazy Stupid Love) appears again in The Help, the movie we’ve been waiting for since reading Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling fictionalized memoir of growing up in the South. Can it possibly be as good as the book, which examined racial stereotypes and class relationships between black maids and the snotty women they work for in the Mississippi of the 1960s? It’s a given that the young journalist played by Stone is a catalyst for change; but will the maids be portrayed as three dimensional courageous risk takers or be Hollywoodized versions of the book’s characters? Opening Aug. 12.

One Day The lovely Anne Hathaway stars in One Day, a dramatic romantic comedy about two students, Emma and Dexter, who meet the night they graduate from college in 1988 and agree to remain friends and visit each other on the same date every year. Set in Scotland and England, the two share all the growing pains of becoming adults as we witness the special connection they have as two friends who dance around the obvious challenges of male-female friendship. Opens Aug. 19. ---By Judy Kirkwood