Life Happens – 2011 LAFF

L!fe Happens, an independently financed film by writer-director Kat Coiro, world premiered at the Los Angeles Film festival last Saturday night. The film echoes the success of the raunchy, female driven hit Bridesmaids, centering around the relationship between three twenty-something, female roommates.

Deena (Kate Bosworth) is a driven feminist, focused on her blooming writing career. Kim (Krysten Ritter, who helped pen the script) is a quirky dog-walker, with a dream of opening a “doggie mall”. The third roommate, Laura (Rachel Bilson), has a smaller role in the film. She provides comic relief as the absent-minded, virgin roommate.

After a one-night stand, Kim becomes pregnant and decides to keep the child. Roughly one year later, we find Kim struggling to be a young mother, having to rely on help from her roommates to get by in everyday life. Deena and Kim begin to have a strained relationship, as their lives go in different directions.

While it appears that the film in about raising a baby, L!fe Happens rests on the shoulders of the female relationship dynamics. The two friends must figure out how to grow in their separate ways, while keeping their relationship from imploding. This notion of “girlfriends” is what sold Kate Bosworth on the script. At a Q&A session after the film, Bosworth spoke of she liked the fact that it is a “love story” between the two women, showing how deeply females “connect”.

When asked, Kat Coiro said that she is happy to be a “humble part” of the female buddy-comedy movement. And while the comparison to Bridesmaids is inevitable, L!fe Happens stands on its own two feet with a kind of indie-quirkiness that makes it endearing. The film hits the mark and, maybe even more importantly, has everyone asking, “What can we expect next from the women of Hollywood?”.