Senna is an aspiring fashion designer who struggles professionally and romantically. What better time to drop in on her and assess her life than once a year on her birthday? Birthdays are a time to reflect, to take stock, to celebrate, and to mourn. We meet Senna (Sharon Stone) on her 46th birthday and follow her into her 50s. She doesn’t believe in marriage but wouldn’t mind finding love. She does believe in career, but hers hasn’t found her yet. Don’t worry about judging her too harshly – that’s what mothers (Ellen Burstyn) are for.
On one of these occasions, we (and she) meet Adam (Tony Goldwyn), a straight-laced lawyer with a foot or two in his mouth. They seem like a classic case of opposites attract until one too many birthdays go by without a ring, and Senna’s carefully composed facade cracks, exposing all her inner most birthday wishes – and they aren’t exactly what she’s been espousing this whole time.
Do you make a wish as you blow out your candles? People say that we have to hold our wish dear, keep it secret, or else it won’t come true. Perhaps that’s just a convenient way we have of not exposing ourselves, because, as Senna’s best friend Darla (Liza Lapira) puts it, wishes are an admission that something’s missing, that there’s a hole that needs to be filled.
Senna is a grown-ass white lady with a pretty cushy life, but no, not all of her wishes have come true. If she hasn’t learned that about life by her 46th birthday (*coughSharonStoneis60cough*), then there isn’t much hope for her. Now we’re just going through the motions to see what clever yet subtle way her mother has of lightly insulting her while pretending to lift her up.
Sharon Stone is kind of delightful, in a way that makes you miss her even as you’re watching her in this subpar rom-com, if that’s what this is supposed to be. It would be nice if she was given a vehicle more worthy, but All I Wish (also known as A Little Something For Your Birthday) isn’t it. She does her best to tongue the clunky dialogue and pave over the plot holes with her effervescence, but Sharon Stone alone is not enough frosting to make up for this disappointing piece of cake.
bad at choosing men. They’re all unavailable. Her best effort is a married man who’s bad in bed AND rude to waiters. Nothing going for him! He’s not even cute! And he’ll never be hers. So why then is she so hurt when he continues to never leave his wife, as promised? Why does she cry over men who don’t deserve it? She’s a beautiful woman, a tender, open artist. Everyone is entitled to one bad boyfriend. But a string of them starts to look like a pattern, and you’re the one picking the wallpaper. So what the hell is wrong with Isabelle?
money, and since it’s 1998, no cell phone. He does know people’s phone numbers though, which is weird, so he’s able to call people collect from a gas station payphone. Nobody comes to his rescue. So now he’s got a cross-country road trip to make, relying on the kindness of strangers, in order to get home by 6pm on Christmas Eve and claim the keys to the Porsche.
Malorie is living with a small group of people, strangers, really, who don’t always agree on the best way to exist together, or how to stay alive. Malorie’s not even the only pregnant one – Olympia (Danielle Macdonald) is expecting too, right around the same time. The house’s other inhabitants (Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Jacki Weaver among them) will have to make all kinds of hard choices to ensure the group’s survival. As you probably guessed, ultimately, Malorie will need to leave the relative safety of their shared home – and worse than that, she may have to sacrifice one child to save another. Doesn’t that sound like a fun little jam to be in?
mostly resents. One night, she hears a story on television about a little girl, Brook, who disappeared 30 years ago. An inkling is all it takes, and soon Nancy is contacting and visiting Leo (Steve Buscemi) and Ellen (J. Smith-Cameron), the little girl’s parents, believing or half-believing or half-willing herself to be the kidnapped child, now grown up.
Cut to: 10 years later, a mutual friend dies, and Liam, a mega star, leaves his world tour to go back to that small town, which he’s never really escaped. And wouldn’t you know it – Josie is the first person he runs into. Well, Josie and her kid.
Dumplin’ is based on a novel by Julie Murphy, and it’s kind of like a Love, Simon for fat girls (we deserve love too!). Willowdean doesn’t have the perfect figure, a fact all the more noticeable standing next to her mother, a literal beauty queen, and the town’s image of perfection. So it’s a mystery to her when Bo, the heartthrob that works with her in the local diner, seems to be interested in her. That can’t be right, can it?
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