Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000)

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her is a film written and directed by Rodrigo García Barcha starring an ensemble cast. Garcia's debut film was shown at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and won the Un Certain Regard Award. Holly Hunter was nominated for the 2001 Emmy in the supporting actress category.

"Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" consists of five stories or vignettes, tied together loosely to envision the complexity of incomplete communications about life, family, and love. We glimpse the lives of five women, each facing problems such as loneliness, dissatisfaction, longing, and or desire. Rodrigo Garcia, in his first-time directing, assembled this film with a loaded cast of actresses who can tell you everything you need to know just by their body language and facial expressions. Their individual stories show us what "things you can tell just by looking at her." In the film's prologue, Kathy (Amy Brenneman) --a police detective--and her partner are investigating the apparent suicide of an unknown woman. Dr. Keener (Glenn Close), a middle-aged doctor, attempts to care for her aging mother while coping with her own loneliness. She avoids intimacy, but also longs for it; we see both frustration and anticipation as she waits for phone calls from male colleagues. Dr. Keener decides to seek comfort or escape in Christine (Calista Flockhart) who reads tarot cards. Christine's partner Lilly (Valeria Golino) is critically ill with an unnamed disease. Rebecca (Holly Hunter) is a successful bank manager who's "not big on regrets." After a three-year involvement with Robert (Gregory Hines)--who keeps her secret from his wife--she becomes pregnant. Before Rebecca visits Dr. Keener to get an abortion, she has a fling with Walter, (Matt Craven), a co-worker. Rose (Kathy Baker) is a single mother who is writing children's books, and develops a sweet crush on a new dwarf neighbor (Danny Woodburn), who catches Rose spying on him. Rose later experiences the shock of learning about her son's extensive sexual activity. Kathy's sister Carol Faber (Cameron Diaz) is a lovely blind woman who has an active social life. Kathy is attracted to the medical examiner in the suicide case, and her story ends with him taking her out on a date. In an epilogue, Dr. Keener drops in to a bar, where she meets the male character, Walter, from previous stories (possibly the younger male alluded to in Christine's tarot card reading).