A Woman, a Part

Middle-aged Anna (Maggie Siff) is a successful TV star hitting a burnout phase in her life, health, and career. Rejecting the advice of her manager, she bolts from Hollywood to reconnect with her roots in New York's fringe theater scene—not so much in search of an acting experience but to find her way back into the familiar fold of a friendship with onetime collaborators Kate (Cara Seymour) and Isaac (John Ortiz). After 20 years, however, that is easier said than done. Confronted with some suspicion, lingering resentments from the past, and desperation (neither Kate nor Isaac are doing well financially or professionally), Anna goes on a bumpy journey of reconciliation with the one-time allies she left behind, and in the process discovers more about her own motivations and the limitations of being an artist in an industry that doesn't value women of a certain age. Directed by Elisabeth Subrin, A Woman, a Part could have easily been numbingly insular, but there is a distinct melancholy here that feels universal, centering on the reckoning of old and new ambitions with the narrowing window of age. Recommended. (T. Keogh)