All aboard for chickville kept ringing in my head while watching In the Land of Women. Conducting this trip is Adam Brody as a young man who decides to take care of his ailing grandmother and get his life together after being dumped suddenly by his famous girlfriend.

Brody (The O.C., Thank You for Smoking) plays Carter Webb, an aspiring author who wants to write a novel. His day job writing soft-core porn for movies has left him too little time, however. Plus he's been spending all his free time with his girlfriend Sofia (Elena Anaya, Van Helsing). When Sofia ends their relationship and Carter learns his grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) needs a caregiver, he thinks it's the perfect solution. Not only can he re-bond with her, but he’ll have time to work on his book. After a quick move from LA to Michigan, Carter finds a spot in his grandmother's disheveled house.

While taking out the trash one day, Carter meets Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan), the neighbor who lives across the street from his grandmother. Soon Carter and Sarah are sharing daily walks and one ends in a kiss, observed by Sarah's teenage daughter Lucy (Kristen Stewart, Zathura: A Space Adventure). Since she first met Carter, Lucy has had a secret curiosity about him. She has a very angry reaction when she witnesses mom kissing Carter, but I was never sure if it's because she likes him, thinks her mom is too old for him, or is mad because it seems unfair to her father.

As Carter and his complex grandmother Phyllis attempt to be on the same planet, things get more complicated with Sarah's family. Sarah has just learned she has breast cancer. She's worried about leaving Lucy and her younger daughter, the precocious Paige (Makenzie Vega), without a mother. For a guy who suddenly lost the woman of his life, Carter now seems to be a big shoulder of support for four women.

To me Carter appears as merely a band aid to these women and never seems emotionally involved with any of them. Although he and Sarah share many intimate moments -- grocery shopping, hospital visits, mall visits with all the girls -- their relationship is never defined, and I had no idea how each one felt about the other.  Nor did I understand the relationship between Sarah and her husband Nelson (Clark Gregg), who shows up only in a few scenes. At one point Carter upsets Sarah and writes her a note which sets in her purse unread for days, and then there's little follow through about it. This seems to happen with every plot point in the movie.

Lucy is intrigued enough by Carter to invite him to a teenage party, but she's more than happy when he helps her score a new beau. There are scenes where we see her painting and very angry, but again, I wasn't sure if she was mad because her mother seemed to garner more of Carter's attention or that her boyfriend turns out to be jerk or that her mother had cancer.

Vega, and sadly Dukakis as well, portray cliché characters we've seem in many films. Paige talks to Carter as if she's 30. Poor Dukakis plays the worst drawn character I've ever seen. Phyllis looks a fright, but for someone who is supposed to be dying seems to have a gusto attitude. She makes biting remarks about sex and other things that aren't funny or make no sense, and oddly Carter rarely has a reaction to them. Dukakis is a fine actress who deserves better roles than this. It also annoyed me that the main reason Carter goes to Michigan is to take care of his grandmother, but the time he spends with her is minimal compared to the time he spends with the Hardwickes.

Performances do little to save this movie. Ryan, not seen on the big screen for three years since Against the Ropes, offers nothing profound in what is supposed to be a woman facing the end of her life. The only two scenes showing any evidence of this dire situation are one in which Ryan pretends (very badly) to throw up and another when she's wearing a head cap while sitting in a hospital bed, but she actually looks quite healthy. Brody comes across as a smiling whatever-comes-up-I'm-the-man-to handle-it guy. He fails to bring the emotion he exhibits in The O.C. to any situation Carter faces here. Vega and Dukakis are trapped by their roles as well as by the horrible dialogue permeating the entire film, and Stewart delivers a dark and baffling performance.  

Jonathan Kasdan, son of director Lawrence Kasdan, wrote the screenplay and makes his directorial debut with this film.  The direction seems fine; it's the story that suffers. I found the soundtrack the only positive thing about the movie. It features some golden oldies, but even they are rarely relevant to the scenarios in the film. I'm not sure what world of women Kasdan experienced to define his characters, but in In the Land of Women they're about as realistic and interesting as cardboard.

(Released by Warner Bros. Pictures and rated "PG-13" for sexual content, thematic elements and language.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com.