Anand Tucker

A delicate director.

Hilary and Jackie (1998) -- Kind of a confusing movie in that it has no real center. Sometimes it wants to be a story about two sisters who are close, sometimes about sisters who are jealous, sometimes about the dangers of both fame and complacency... and all of these things sound interesting enough, except that they're all thrown together and mixed with bizarre seeming big-deal moments (that eventually go nowhere) like an insane Emily Watson (insane for no reason I can tell) wanting to sleep with her sister's husband, and insaner Rachel Griffiths and her husband letting her--or the ending where Emily Watson is dying of MS, throwing most of the previous out the window in the process. In the end, it's a bunch of kind of interesting stuff happening, but not a story (based on a true one or no). The good news is that the actors (and often the director) are so talented you barely notice the other things lacking.

Shopgirl (2005) -- Based on Steve Martin's novella, this one has ideas for about the length of a short story--maybe one written by a person Claire Dane's age. Essentially we watch a young woman figure out that an older man is simply interested in her for sex and for feeling superior to. All of the characters are realistic enough, which might be the problem.