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The new movie features That 70s Show star Topher Grace, who reminds Louise of a boyfriend who died in a car accident long ago, and opens in select cities this week.
Well appreciated critically, it has created a strong Oscar buzz for Linney whose performance here is far more complex and compelling than her work in Mystic River (as Sean Penn's wife) and the single mother in You Can Count On Me.
Her work in the film, struggling to make sense of her troubled brother and his friendship with her little boy, fetched her an Oscar nomination.
Most American movies, never mind critics of movies and television shows, treat sex cloyingly, argues Kidd.
'Sex and race are absolutely absent in any real kind of way in American cinema,' he asserted.
'When I watch the scene, my toes curl,' he added with a chuckle, 'and I really don't know whether it is because I am titillated or I feel awkward -- It could be all those things at the same time.'
He also said Linney, whose hits include The Truman Show opposite Jim Carrey, made things very comfortable for her young co-star.
ps is loaded with sexual content. In its second half, Louise's ex-husband (Gabriel Byrne) confesses that he had been battling a sexual addiction and that he had slept with men and women, including his students. Also, Louise's best friend, Missey (Marcia Gay Harden, Oscar winner for Pollock), talks about how she seduced Louise's boyfriend out of jealousy.
'Such relationships may seem odd to some people,' says Kidd, who based his film on the eponymous novel by Helen Shulman.
'I may be wrong about it,' he continues, 'but I feel American movies do not deal with the issue of a competitive element in many friendships between women.'