I want to like the films Nicole Holofcener directs, because I feel that she makes sensitive, intelligent films about women from a woman's point of view, and that's a feat mainstream Hollywood has certainly never been adept at achieving.

But "Friends with Money" is a tiresome movie that goes nowhere, populated with characters we learn next to nothing about behaving in ways that drive us crazy. Jennifer Aniston has the central role as a young woman who used to be a teacher and now cleans houses for a living, when she's not obsessing over a former boyfriend or letting her current boyfriend walk all over her. Aniston's character is the kind that we really need to understand if we're to feel any sympathy for; Holofcener manages to make us frustrated with her but little more.

A trio of fine actresses (Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, and Joan Cusack) play Aniston's affluent, disagreeable friends. Their stories consist of scene after scene of them being unpleasant in a variety of situations, the movie settling into a pounding monotony that makes its 90 minute running time feel much longer. It doesn't make any sense at all that these three would still be friends with Aniston, yet at the same time, I couldn't wholly believe McDormand or Keener as rich bitch socialites either. The only point the movie seems to make is that money and affluence don't bring one happiness or fulfillment, a conclusion I already came to long ago, so the film has virtually nothing to say to me.

A dull movie that feels more like an outline than an actual film.

Grade: D+

I could sum up this whole movie experience with two words: Who cares. Group of extremely dislikable people and their self-centered and meaningless lives rambling about their non-existing problems. I don't have to like the characters, I don't have to feel close to them, I could even hate them, but, on some basic level I have to care what happens to them. That is not the case with this superficial and contrived movie. And to top it all, the cast of such talented and interesting actresses wasting their time to enliven this carcass of a movie. If you are trying to tell a story, it has to have some natural progression, and , for Goodness sake, some purpose. " Friends with Money" has none whatsoever.

Four women are best friends. Franny (Joan Cusack) is a stay at home mom with a trust fund and a loving husband Matt (Greg Germann). Jane (Frances McDormand) is a clothes designer and everybody thinks that her husband Aaron (Simon McBurney) is gay. Christine (Catherine Keener) is in a successful but combative TV writing relationship with her husband David (Jason Isaacs). Olivia (Jennifer Aniston) is the only one without money. She was a teacher at a fancy school who quited becoming a maid. Franny sets Olivia up with her trainer Mike (Scott Caan).

There are some fun exchanges and some fun observational relationship humor. The problem is that the movie is a bit random with so many characters and so many story lines. It's hard to keep track of everybody and even harder to track their emotional connections. I'd like for the movie to stay with one woman for longer than a minute at a time. It adds to the feeling of randomness. The movie would probably be better with one less woman.