Not only is this not a groundbreaking film, it's not a particularly pleasant, or enjoyable one either. It centers around a group of early 40s-somethings who hate their lives, their spouses and their place in the world. The casting of Aniston is strange, as she is easily 10 years younger then her circle of friends.

While you'd think that the film is trying to state "happiness has nothing to do with how much money you have", the opposite appears to be true as the more elevated couples do have less problems. And, if fact, all of Aniston's problems are seemingly solved when she manages to snag a wealthy (albeit slacker) guy herself. While the three married couples do have children, they don't add anything to the story, as they seem more like convenient accessories than meaningful relations. While that may be a creative choice, the fact that it runs across all three couples identically makes me inclined to believe it's just sloppy, two-dimensional screen writing. None of the story lines are brought full circle and the entire exercise feels like a long death march towards irrelevance. Several interesting notions are addressed, but none closely examined or fully developed. While there are poignant moments and some nice creative decisions (i.e. allowing the actors to look their age), this genre has been mined before to better results (i.e. "Grand Canyon").

I want to like the films Nicole Holofcener directs, because I feel that she makes sensitive, intelligent films about women from a woman's point of view, and that's a feat mainstream Hollywood has certainly never been adept at achieving.

But "Friends with Money" is a tiresome movie that goes nowhere, populated with characters we learn next to nothing about behaving in ways that drive us crazy. Jennifer Aniston has the central role as a young woman who used to be a teacher and now cleans houses for a living, when she's not obsessing over a former boyfriend or letting her current boyfriend walk all over her. Aniston's character is the kind that we really need to understand if we're to feel any sympathy for; Holofcener manages to make us frustrated with her but little more.

A trio of fine actresses (Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, and Joan Cusack) play Aniston's affluent, disagreeable friends. Their stories consist of scene after scene of them being unpleasant in a variety of situations, the movie settling into a pounding monotony that makes its 90 minute running time feel much longer. It doesn't make any sense at all that these three would still be friends with Aniston, yet at the same time, I couldn't wholly believe McDormand or Keener as rich bitch socialites either. The only point the movie seems to make is that money and affluence don't bring one happiness or fulfillment, a conclusion I already came to long ago, so the film has virtually nothing to say to me.

A dull movie that feels more like an outline than an actual film.

Grade: D+