Parental Guidance Suggested

PRIVATE LIFE (A-minus) - Good writing and great acting propel Tamara Jenkins' latest slice of middle-class angst into a wonderful roller-coaster of emotions in an intricate character study. The pairing of Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti was probably destined to happen someday, but Jenkins is the lucky recipient of that magic concoction. They portray Rachel and Richard, 40-something Lower East Siders frustrated by their failures -- despite medical assistance -- to conceive. When Richard's step-niece, Sadie (Kayli Carter, TV's "Godless"), temporarily drops out of college and crashes in their apartment, the couple get a wild idea -- ask Sadie to donate one of her vibrant young eggs.

It's a rather hare-brained scheme, but it's plausible enough to launch an amusing, if nerve-wracking narrative about a couple in crisis. You can fairly easily predict how Thanksgiving dinner will go with Sadie's parents, Richard's brother and wife (a laid-back John Carroll Lynch and a wonderfully Type-A Molly Shannon). The fireworks among the five lead actors are often just below the surface.

Jenkins knows what she's doing here. She makes a movie once a decade, and they've each been memorable. "The Savages" (a tour de force starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) was one of the best releases of 2008, and 1998's "Slums of Beverly Hills" still holds up well, thanks to the father-daughter pairing of Alan Arkin and Natasha Lyonne. With "Private Life" the dialogue rings true, and the expressions and reactions of Hahn and Giamatti, in particular, feel totally lived-in. Aside from the occasional wavering of the basic premise, there are no false moves here.

WHO WE ARE NOW (B) - Another powerful performance, this time from Julianne Nicholson as a woman doing everything in her power to hold things together as she fights for custody of her son from her sister a year after getting sprung from a 10-year prison sentence for manslaughter resulting from a youthful mistake. Nicholson's Beth is a hardened ball of suppressed rage as she does battle with her sister, Gabby (Jess Weixler), who raised Beth's son while Beth did time.

Beth suffers a series of indignities trying to find work, debasing herself with a sleazy manager of a coffee shop for a waitressing job. Her lawyer, Carl (a laid-back Jimmy Smits), flirts with malpractice as the head of a do-gooder legal-aid clinic. Meantime, Carl's underling, idealistic young lawyer Jess (Emma Roberts, just right), fights on behalf of a teen mother hoping to get her own life back on track.

Little goes right for anyone in this scenario, and Nicholson and Roberts keep the train on its tracks in writer-director Matthew Newton's at-times rickety production. Zachary Quinto mumbles through the role of Beth's love interest, an Afghanistan veteran also trying not to lose his shit on a daily basis. It all builds to a surprising and satisfying conclusion to a sharply observed character study.