Don't Call it a Chick Flick

From fairytale princesses to struggling alcoholics to bickering sisters, Susannah Grant knows how to write strong women. She gave Julia Roberts the words that helped her win an Academy Award for Erin Brockovich, and earned her own nomination for the screenplay. Now, she's setting out to direct women as well, with Catch and Release, which stars Jennifer Garner as a woman coping with the loss of her fianc? after he perishes in a tragic accident one week before their wedding. Women auteurs may be scarce in Hollywood, but Grant doesn't feel she has anything to prove. "The truth is, I don't really care about that phrase," Grant says, when asked if she's bothered by the term 'chick flick.' "I'm bored of it. It's just… I'm not a big fan of any phrase that tends to be reductive. And that seems to be one of them." Grant is the kind of post-modern feminist that eschews the concept of feminism altogether. Having gone to an all-girls school and seen the women in her family work as a matter of course, it never even occurred to her that there might be barriers in her chosen field, just because she is a woman. She points out that she got the directing job not because she has a particular feminine sensibility, but because she wrote it. "I said to Amy Pascale at Sony, 'You like the script?'"' she says. "'Oh, by the way, I wouldn't mind directing it.' And I was not contracted to direct it, so she had every right to say, 'Well maybe I'll get someone who's done this before and actually knows what she's doing.' But instead she said, 'Great.'" From an acting standpoint, Garner also appreciated the fact that Grant was both the writer and the director on the film. She says she was attracted to the complexity of the story and respected Grant's past screenplays for films like In Her Shoes, 28 Days and Ever After. "We just had girl heaven," notes Garner. "There was Jenno Topping, this wonderful producer who is smart and to the point and no bullshit. And then there's Susannah, who is this
	Published: 2007-01-26 Provider: IGN