PRODUCTION NOTES

MY ONE AND ONLY

Directed by Richard Loncraine

Starring Renee Zellweger Logan Lerman Kevin Bacon Eric McCormack Chris Noth Mark Rendall Nick Stahl

Release date: 11 March 2010

Running time: 108 minutes

Rated: TBC

For more information contact Jillian Heggie at Hopscotch Films on:

(02) 8303 3800 or email: [email protected] My One and Only

The tires of a baby-blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible squeal down the New York street, and none of its occupants looks back. The beautiful but mercurial Ann Devereaux (Renée Zellweger) has just left her philandering husband Dan (Kevin Bacon), a society bandleader, and taken to the road with her teenage sons, George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall), in search of a wealthy replacement mate. Although it’s 1953, Ann is certain that her girlish charms will serve her as well as they did two decades earlier. But time has marched on since Ann’s courting days, and it seems that the losers and playboys outnumber the eligible and willing bachelors. Ann never gives up hope, but a series of new schools for the boys, ever more humble lodgings and romantic misadventures start to take the gloss off their trip. Yet Ann is indefatigable, her pride matched by the flighty enthusiasm of her older son Robbie, a flamboyant boy who believes he is meant for a life on the stage, and the cynical wit of George, an observant aspiring writer. As the miles roll by, their journey veers from eccentric, to hair-raising, to poignant, to comic. The three of them get to know each other much better than they’d ever thought they could. George endures it all, sure that it will be over soon and they will return to New York. As time passes and the trio continues travelling, George yearns for a life of his own and resents having his teenage years hijacked by his mother’s capricious plans. From her impulsive choices to the downright bizarre characters they meet on the road, Ann steers her sons on a narrow highway between excitement and panic. But ultimately, George discovers the determination, dignity and love underneath his mother’s narcissistic exterior. And Ann makes a different future for herself and her sons than any of them had imagined. George tells the story of their cross-country misadventures all the way to the promised land of Hollywood with love, compassion, humour and insight. “My One and Only,” directed by RICHARD LONCRAINE and starring RENÉE ZELLWEGER, KEVIN BACON and LOGAN LERMAN, is inspired by incidents in the life of actor and Hollywood icon GEORGE HAMILTON. The film is written by CHARLIE PETERS and is produced by AARON RYDER and NORTON HERRICK. ABOUT THE STORY

Screenwriter Charlie Peters explains that the story began with an exchange between the late entertainment mogul Merv Griffin and George Hamilton about the actor’s early life and experiences with his mother. Bob Kosberg, a producer who worked with Griffin and knew Hamilton, introduced the two, certain that Hamilton’s witty stories would inspire Griffin to think they were worthy of the big screen. “I was called by Bob Kosberg, a producer friend; he said that Merv had come across an interesting story,” recalls Peters. “I met with Merv at the venerable Hollywood hangout Trader Vic’s, and George Hamilton arrived in his white Rolls Royce. He sat down and just started telling me about his mother and how he ended up in Los Angeles, where he was eventually discovered.” Peters loved the tale and soon built upon it, turning it into a script that captured the attitudes of the early 50s, combined with the humour and irony of Hamilton’s unique story and profiles of some unforgettable characters. “I’ve probably read half a dozen scripts as good as this in my life,” says director Richard Loncraine, who was originally hired in 1999 by Beacon Pictures for the project. “One of the things I love about the film is that you can’t really put it into a box. It’s many things, but all I know is I love it.” For almost 10 years the script made the development rounds at various studios until Merv Griffin got it back in turnaround. Peters convinced him that the only place to get the genre-defying story off the ground was in the independent production world. Loncraine, who had been attached to the project in its early days, was still interested in directing, so the trio sought a producer. Producer Aaron Ryder, whom Griffin had met over the course of other project discussions, was struck by Peters’ exceptional writing, and quickly saw the potential of the project. He immediately understood “what a fantastic role Ann would be for whoever was going to play this mother.” Said Ryder, “There are very few actresses who are able to maintain an empathy with the audience even though the character herself might be a little flawed.” Ryder believed that Renée Zellweger’s “charm and un-forced sense of comedy” was perfect for what he calls “a classic role.” An Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning performer, Zellweger has demonstrated the ability to play dramatic and comedic roles with equal skill and grace. The producers agreed that she’d bring Ann Devereaux to life in all her vivid dimensions. Zellweger read the script while on another shoot and couldn’t put it down. “It made me laugh out loud in so many places,” recalls Zellweger. “I loved how quick-witted all the characters were, I loved the flow of it. I couldn’t wait to find out who would play the boys and who would play Dan, and I couldn’t wait to get to the set and start working on Ann.” “ At the start of the story, Ann likes to think of herself as a little Katherine Hepburn around the edges,” says Zellweger. “She has idealized her life as a New York socialite and is just going through the motions as a mother. After leaving Dan, she intends to set up the same camp somewhere else with another provider and get on with her life of being fabulous, but she accidentally evolves into a very capable person.” With Zellweger’s commitment to the project, Ryder and Loncraine took the package to financier and entrepreneur Norton Herrick. “I’ve been in residential and commercial real estate for most of my life, and recently became involved in Broadway theatre,” notes Herrick, “but this story felt like it might be a good way to get into the film business. I thought the characters were layered and the story had humour and humanity. I wanted to see it on the screen.” Recalls executive producer Michael Herrick, “I’d gone through a number of scripts before I arrived at this one and it was like a breath of fresh air. The story was unique, the dialogue very witty, and I had a smile on my face the whole time I read it.” A long-time fan of Loncraine’s work on “Wimbledon” and “Firewall,” Mike understood how the script would make ideal use of the director’s affinity for subtle character development. With two young actors who are in essentially every scene, the casting of Ann’s two boys, George and Robbie, had to be just right. It was an early concern for Loncraine, particularly in the case of George, because “he is kind of a young curmudgeon and his humour is somewhat cynical,” explains the director. “To find a young boy who had those qualities without the life experience is hard, because I didn’t want George to be offensive; he had to show warmth.” Screenwriter Charlie Peters, whose fictionalized account of Hamilton’s life is enriched by his own experiences as the child of a single parent in the ‘50s, describes George as “a man in a boy’s body.” Loncraine and Ryder had met Logan Lerman two years before the production would finally get underway in the summer of 2008. “I was very impressed by his performance in ‘3:10 To Yuma.’ He has a real passion for acting and an understanding of dialogue,” said Loncraine. “Logan is deadpan in real life and has a visual charisma” that Loncraine felt was key to his role as the precocious George Devereaux at 15. A perceptive but cynical observer of human behaviour and a student at an elite New York prep school, George finds his life seriously disrupted by his parents’ split, but “plays along in the beginning, thinking that he’ll be back home as soon as Ann realizes she can’t handle it on her own,” begins Lerman. “He doesn’t believe that his mom or his half-brother or his philandering dad sees things realistically, so he feels that he has to be the glue that’s making everything all right.” “ This movie thrives on its characters and I really connected with George and his angst,” says Lerman. Casting the older son, Robbie, Mark Rendall’s “sensitive boy” mannerisms brought humour to his role as George’s effeminate half brother, immersed in the glamour of 1950’s Hollywood, with a film allusion ready for every occasion. “It’s about body language, and Mark was remarkable because he never made it annoying or offensive, but still made it funny,” reflects Loncraine. “I think Robbie doesn’t really have any questions as to who he is,” says Rendall. “Ann is supportive because she’s an extremely dramatic but kind of elegant person, and she loves having Robbie as her pal and confidante.” Hoping for his big break in movies, Robbie hones his skills playing high-school drama club roles like Lady Macbeth in his all-boys’ school play. He eventually lands a coveted screen test in Hollywood that doesn't turn out quite as anticipated. In many ways, director Richard Loncraine sees Robbie as the most stable person in the family, a strong contrast to high-living bandleader Dan Devereaux. “Dan was a tricky role to cast, because, though he’s only in three very good scenes in the movie; they really have to resonate,” recalls Loncraine. “George wants to be with his father all the way through the film; he’s constantly talking about him and ringing him up. I think his presence is always there.” Zellweger was excited to hear that Kevin Bacon had accepted the part, as it would be their first screen pairing. “That it happened to be this role - I couldn’t think of anything more perfect,” she enthuses. “I love that he brings this boyishness to Dan that makes you just love him in spite of himself.” “I was drawn to the idea of a man who just does not really want to grow up,” says Bacon of Devereaux, whose emotional age he estimates as closer to his son George’s. “I think in all walks of life, but certainly in music, you meet a lot of cats who are like that because the lifestyle is so fun, travelling, playing music, hanging out in dressing rooms and having girls around. Part of the lifestyle is to be childlike and Dan’s life just kind of happens in rhythm. He just kind of moves through life in 4/4 or 6/8 or swinging; it’s the way he lives.” “ My One and Only” features supporting roles played by some of the most appealing actors in Hollywood. Steven Weber (“Wings”) plays Wallace Braithwaite, Ann's former beau and Boston businessman whose current financial condition is more dire than Ann can afford; “Sex and the City’s" Chris Noth is Dr. Harlan Williams, a manly Army doctor whose crisp exterior conceals an authoritarian temper; Eric McCormack (“Will and Grace”) portrays Charlie Correll, another former admirer who greets Ann warmly at his Pittsburgh mansion garden party while his much–younger and glamorously beautiful new girlfriend dismisses Ann with a glance. While in Pittsburgh, Ann also encounters Bud (Nick Stahl), a quiet and thoughtful blue-collar loner who lives in her apartment building. Although he has nothing to offer Ann economically or socially, Bud’s admiration for his glamorous neighbour eventually causes him to gallantly help her out of a true scrape. She realizes ruefully that he is, despite his rough appearance, the only true gentleman she’s met so far in her travels. Finally, Ann makes a new conquest in Bill Massey (David Koechner), a prosperous paint store owner in St Louis who seems like the catch Ann has been waiting for. But once again, Ann’s fantasies of a “rescue marriage” come up hard against reality. Soon, she and her boys are back on the road. As they continue their journey, their financial fortunes rise and fall, they meet a collection of outlandish and interesting characters, and they have adventures both funny and poignant. By the time the Devereaux arrive in California, they have all come to know themselves and each other in new ways. They may not be the family next door, but they are a family – and the end of their journey is the start of a colourful new life. ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND BEHIND THE CAMERA “Aaron, Richard and co-producer Vicky Dee Rock assembled a great crew,” remarked Herrick of the behind-the-camera team that was able to recreate six major cities in and around Baltimore, Maryland and then across New Mexico. “ My One and Only” and its mythical cross-country journey marks the fifth pairing between Production Designer Brian Morris and Director Richard Loncraine. “Brian’s a wonderfully skilful man,” says Loncraine. The movie’s settings recall the hopeful opulence of the Fifties as well as the more modest and unpopulated rural landscape of post-War America. The director’s camera team included Marco Pontecorvo (Director of Photography) with whom he’s collaborated on two other films. “He paints with light,” said Loncraine of the cameraman, who grew up on sets watching his father, Gillo Pontecorvo (“The Battle of Algiers”), direct actors. “This movie required an elegant look,” explains Pontecorvo. “It was a challenge because of the overlapping layers of drama and comedy, and the lighting had to follow that, as well as the characters, on their journey across the US.” Location Manager John Latenser used the script as a framework to guide him to locations and then worked closely with the director when an ideal location might mean an evolution in a character’s setting. “Hope, Ann’s sister, initially lived in the city and then we considered more of a rural setting,” remembers Latenser. “So the Bissels’ house moved farther and farther out of St Louis until we found it out in the country in Upper Baltimore County. It was more of a farm-type setting, lots of interesting little structures at a small intersection in Baltimore County.” SETTING IT ALL TO MUSIC

“Musically and lyrically, that era, which is post-Gershwin and pre-rock- and-roll, was a transitional period where the lyrics got slightly more risqué,” explains composer Dillon O’Brian. O’Brian was brought on by Music Supervisor Steve Lindsey to write bandleader Dan Devereaux’s sole hit, “My One And Only,” which became the movie’s title. “The song had to sound like a hit from 1949,” explains O’Brian, a music historian and fan of American popular music. With the film’s back-story as a concept, he looked for a fresh spin on the Gershwin genre. “I fell in love with the song instantly,” says Loncraine, who eventually cast the session singer from the demo tape as the lead singer in Dan’s band, who is also one of Dan’s conquests. “It’s a wonderful, haunting song and a great one to leave the theatre with, because it has all the emotions. It has a nice irony, because obviously Dan was a philanderer, and ‘My One And Only’ was not what his life was about. It was his one and every - not only.” Executive Music Producer Howard Herrick and Lindsey sought a sampling of classic deep-track treasures to fill in the score. “It was really the cutting edge of the birth of rock ’n’ roll and this is a road movie. They’re in the car travelling from city to city, so the music is a sampling of that explosive time,” says Howard, who found that the jazz and early R&B influence nicely mirrored Ann’s emotions throughout the film. Producer Aaron Ryder says, “Every family has a crazy story to explain its past,” and in some ways this family’s journey will resonate with everyone. “The members of this family come to know each other and themselves. You can think you know what’s best for you but it’s the life lessons that create the true bond of family,” agrees Mike Herrick. The New York Times

Hitting the Highway to Find a New Husband By STEPHEN HOLDEN Published: August 21, 2009

In “My One and Only,” a good-natured screwball road film set in 1953, Renée Zellweger plays Ann Devereaux, a fading Southern belle who drags along her two teenage boys on a nationwide husband-hunting expedition. Crinkling her eyes, smiling coyly and perambulating with seductive flounces, Ann could be a cousin of Blanche DuBois. She belongs to a breed of aggressively glamorous women whose syrupy wiles modern feminism has rendered quaint, and Ms. Zellweger inhabits her fully. The journey begins when Ann returns to the New York apartment she shares with her husband, Dan (Kevin Bacon), a handsome society bandleader, and catches him in flagrante delicto with another woman. Mr. Bacon’s suave lothario, with his lascivious grin, is instantly recognizable as the kind of reptilian ladies’ man who just can’t help himself. Stomping out of the house, Ann empties a safe deposit box; scoops up her sons, George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall), who are half- brothers; and, in a baby-blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville paid for in cash, embarks on a trip that takes them from New York to Los Angeles, with stops in Boston, Pittsburgh and St Louis. The movie, directed by Richard Loncraine from a screenplay by Charlie Peters, is a fictionalized account of incidents in the early life of the actor George Hamilton. As embodied by Mr. Lerman, the 15-year-old George, who narrates the movie, is an earnest aspiring writer who bears some physical resemblance to the oleaginous charmer Mr. Hamilton later became, minus the famous suntan. Slender, curly-headed Robbie is an effeminate, fashion-obsessed mama’s boy with Hollywood stars in his eyes who dwells in a cocoon of innocence. The homophobic insults lobbed by strangers encountered during the trip go over his head. The film’s wistfully jaunty tone is established by an elaborate title sequence of vintage radio and magazine ads. “My One and Only” aspires to be a contemporary version of a Preston Sturges comedy. But for all its charm, this light-hearted travelogue is less an inquiry into the soul of America than an affectionate period piece set in economically leaner times, decades before communications technology revolutionized the concept of personal space. The movie conveys an older notion of the country as a land of open roads where you can thumb a ride: a place where you can still get romantically lost and found. As Ann visits old beaus and meets new ones, each more pathetic than the last, “My One and Only” coheres as a series of amusing, loosely connected character sketches. Ann’s first candidate for saviour, Wallace (Steven Weber), is a Boston businessman in dire financial straits who rifles through her purse in a hotel restaurant and disappears while she is powdering her nose. The second, Harlan (Chris Noth), an Army doctor, is an anti- Communist zealot who intimidates George with his authoritarian attitude. Her reunion in Pittsburgh with Charlie (Eric McCormack), a rich former beau with a young girlfriend, gives Ann the first inkling that her shelf life as a beauty at whose feet men fall helplessly besotted may have expired. A friendly overture to a stranger in a hotel bar gets her arrested for solicitation. In need of cash, Ann takes a job at a paint store, where her charm draws business and lands her the attention of its wealthy owner, Bill (David Koechner), a serial bigamist and crackpot. The movie’s wittiest speech is Bill’s lecture to George about how the fluctuating body temperature of women necessitates bringing a sweater to every date. In another moneymaking scheme - transporting hitchhikers for cash - Ann and her sons are robbed at gunpoint. George eventually loses patience with his mother and remains for a while in the Spartan house of Ann’s penny-pinching, desperately jealous sister, Hope (Robin Weigert). All the while, he longs to return to New York, where he eventually ends up leaving a class speechless with his account of how he spent his summer vacation. A half-century ago a regular feature of Reader’s Digest was the series “My Most Unforgettable Character,” whose contributors reminisced about larger-than-life personalities who had crossed their paths. “My One and Only” includes about a dozen worthy candidates. The Baltimore Sun

With any luck, "My One and Only" will draw the same crowds that have made "Julie & Julia" a holdover hit. It's affable entertainment - a road movie with a smart map and characters who are unpredictable human beings, not just billboard attractions. Charlie Peters wrote the charming script with a choice female protagonist. When Ann Devereaux (Renee Zellweger) leaves her boyishly charismatic, unfaithful husband, Dan (Kevin Bacon), a high-society bandleader, in Manhattan and takes her two teenage sons, George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall), on a nationwide search for a new spouse, she ultimately lands them on the closest thing America had to the Yellow Brick Road in 1953 - Route 66 - with Hollywood as the final destination. Maryland stands in for New York, Boston, Pittsburgh and St Louis. The movie doesn't inflate Ann's heroine status beyond being a first- class cockeyed optimist. But Zellweger turns her into a unique creation. She's an upscale, Eisenhower-era cousin to the bohemian, never-say-die schoolteacher Sally Hawkins played in "Happy-Go-Lucky." As Ann, a Southern belle with just a few mild dings in her, Zellweger finds the meaning in the old phrase "gracious living." She uses her everyday polish and flirtatious manner to bring out what's attractive in everyone around her, her boys included. With modulated zing, Zellweger masters the inflections of civilized flattery and the external signals of desire or repulsion. She allows you to savour Ann's fleeting triumphs as well as lament her miseries. Rendall brings theatrical aplomb to Robbie, her oldest son, an aspiring actor with a talent for embroidery, who provides a sardonic Greek chorus to this all-American trip. And Lerman does the full range of budding-manly emotions to a T as George, an aspiring writer with his heart set on composing the next "Catcher in the Rye." What's most appealing about "My One and Only" is that it's decent and full of emotion without being sappy or dopey. In one of many swift, telling interchanges during the Devereaux' prolonged stop in Pittsburgh, George manages to slake his curiosity about the female anatomy while also bucking up the self-worth of a teenage girl named Paula (Molly C. Quinn). George doesn't exploit Paula, or his mother, but he doesn't give into them, either. He never loses sight of Ann's shortcomings; he knows that she hasn't taken his measure as a person. But when Dan, a terrible father, says Ann is just as bad a mother, George has the wisdom to say, "At least she tries." At moments like that, Peters uses simple language to nail complex experience. And Bacon matches Lerman's surprisingly rugged honesty with humorous rue. In this pivotal role, Bacon makes every nanosecond count. What the director, Richard Loncraine, brings to the show is an empathetic professionalism, refreshing in its respect for the audience. A less savvy director might have rammed home the notion that for women like Devereaux in the 1950s, finding a new husband was the prescribed route for a second chance in life. Instead, Loncraine conveys that tenet wittily. He re- creates the recent past with a glossy-yet-chipped atmosphere and a cavalcade of deft supporting male characterizations, such as the James Dean-like Nick Stahl as a poetic grease monkey and David Koechner as a paint-store owner with an offbeat insight into what makes women different from men. (It's their temperature: He advises George always to bring an extra sweater or jacket along on a date.) Chris Noth is a lot more inventive as a Cold War military man than he was as Mr. Big in the "Sex and the City" movie. At crucial points, his face goes blank, and his shoulders slump and then go square. He lets us see how he reboots his mind when Ann demands that he behave like a gentleman rather than a feral alpha male. Cinematographer Marco Pontecorvo, son of "Battle of Algiers" director Gillo Pontecorvo, photographs them all with amused tenderness. This film is a minor symphony of skilfully filtered flesh tones. When George complains about the omnipresent California sun, it's a hilarious in- joke; most people will go in knowing that George Devereaux grows up to be the ever-tan George Hamilton. But "My One and Only" transcends movie-star fluff. In an age when most films aspire to heat and then flame out, it achieves an enduring and endearing warmth. Salon.com

Zellweger's career is not dead yet! This classy period piece features her most nuanced performance in years. BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only" is a Hollywood-style reimagining of the teenage years of Hollywood-style actor George Hamilton, a performer who may be known more for his ultra-debonair image (and his ultra- tan skin) than for his film roles. But that's part of the point: "My One and Only" is an affectionate picture, set in the early 1950s, that coasts breezily on its charm and style, much the way one of its central (nonhuman) characters, a powder-blue 1953 Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible, rolls along city streets and winding highways alike. Hamilton may never have been a huge star, but he's often been extremely enjoyable to watch, partly because, in pictures like "Love at First Bite," he has resolutely refused to take himself too seriously. As Hamilton has figured out, great style can be its own reward, and "My One and Only" takes its cue from that idea. The picture has the light, lilting quality of a Benny Goodman solo. Sweet, modest and quietly classy, it's the perfect late- summer entertainment - and it also happens to feature the most relaxed and nuanced performance Renée Zellweger has given in years. But let's get back, for a minute, to that car, which makes its entrance in the movie's opening scene: Young George (played by the appealing, suitably smooth Logan Lerman) has been entrusted to choose a new Caddy from the showroom so that he, his stepbrother Robbie (Mark Rendall) and his petite- bombshell mother, Ann (Zellweger), can embark on a cross-country getaway from his philandering bandleader dad Dan (Kevin Bacon). Ann packs the boys into the car - or, rather, installs George behind the wheel (she knows how to drive, but under normal circumstances, she's the sort of woman who insists on being driven) - and leaves the family's tony Manhattan digs. They head first to Boston, later moving on to Pittsburgh, St Louis and one point notably further west, Hollywood. Ann's goal: to find herself a new husband, a breadwinner to take care of her and her boys. At first it doesn't occur to the fortyish Ann that, despite her attractiveness, she's ill-equipped to compete with the younger women out there who are also stalking husbands. Still, her bubbly optimism barely dims, although it becomes a source of conflict between her and George: Her other son, Robbie, is a theatrical type who spends his spare time embroidering a map of the family's travels onto the back of a shirt. (The movie's coding may be a little coy, but it's intended to be gentle and nonjudgmental.) George, on the other hand, is a serious, bookish kid who can't help missing his father, and his mother's dreamy frivolousness frustrates him. At one point he asks her to name his favourite book - one he's been carrying around with him like a totem - and she can't. The picture introduces this conflict with a minimum of drama, as if on tiptoe. But the mother-son conflict isn't the real centre of "My One and Only." This is a road movie about imperfect people on the road to something better, only to find that that "something better" isn't anything they could have predicted, or intentionally sought. Loncraine's two most recent pictures were the fairly generic thriller "Firewall" and the smart, flirty (and underrated) romantic comedy "Wimbledon" (which starred the also underrated Paul Bettany). "My One and Only" - its script is by Charlie Peters - has more in common with the latter picture: For one thing, Loncraine has perfect control over the movie's tone. The picture is so buoyant overall that its more touching qualities sneak up on you. Nick Stahl shows up in a small role as a James Dean stereotype, a '50s greaser with a poetic soul, but his performance makes his character more than just a cut-out: Stahl finds the generosity that lurks beneath the kid's posturing. And a late scene between Zellweger and Bacon shapes up as a nice little miniature - Bacon plays a slick showbiz type who's disarming, dissolute and desperate in equal measures. But "My One and Only" really is Zellweger's movie. For one thing, after a string of too-drab or too-cute roles (like the ones she's played in "Appaloosa" and "New in Town") she once again looks like a movie star: The era's fitted brocade dresses and trimly tailored jackets suit her figure perfectly. And Loncraine and his DP, Marco Pontecorvo (son of renowned Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo), give her plenty of soft, low lighting - not because she needs it, necessarily, but because they recognize a simple reality that surprisingly few contemporary filmmakers seem to grasp: Bald, harsh light does no actor any favours. It's nice, of course, to see Zellweger looking so pretty, but she's a pleasure to watch for other reasons: In an era when most actresses clamour to play characters who are younger than they are, here Zellweger resolutely plays a character who's her own age, or possibly a little older. Her Ann is a breathy platinum blonde who's used to getting her way with men, even as she insists on always acting like a lady. But being fortyish in the '50s was nothing like it is today: A sexually vivacious "older" woman wouldn't be called a "cougar," but something far more unflattering. In one scene Ann tries to make friendly chitchat with a stranger in a bar, with disastrous consequences. Zellweger plays Ann as a character devoid of self-pity. But she also carries with her a certain mournfulness, a realization that the world of men (and of sex) isn't the friendly, open place she once thought it was. Zellweger acknowledges Ann's fear and doesn't flinch from it: In fact, she teases out Ann's quiet desperation instead of trying to downplay it. That's a bold move for an actress to make in a culture where women are desperate to prove they can be cute and sexy forever. In "My One and Only" Zellweger has nothing to prove, and her confidence is the sexiest thing around. The New York Observer

A stampede of new end-of-summer films arrives next week in time for Labour Day, and my vacation getaway - too many to adequately cover in the space I’ve been allotted. So I’m recommending one of them a week early. High on the list, there is My One and Only, a colourfully written, expertly directed and beautifully acted romp about the early life of actor George Hamilton that is guaranteed to make you feel warm all over. Just when I was beginning to give up on Renée Zellweger, she returns to glory in the role of a flighty, eccentric, often married and sadly fading Scarlett O’Hara with two teenage sons to raise who sets off on a road trip across America in search of a rich new husband. Get ready to beam with joy. Set in the flamboyant ’50s, it begins in New York when Anne Devereaux returns to her swanky apartment from a hard day of shopping and finds her two-timing, Texas-born society bandleader husband (Kevin Bacon) in bed with another woman. Fiddle-dee-dee. The pouty, impetuous Anne packs up her two boys, George (Logan Lerman) and his older stepbrother, Robbie (Mark Rendall); hits the road to Boston in their flashy new Cadillac Eldorado convertible; and sets out to find a benefactor who will keep them all in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. From Boston to Pittsburgh, St Louis and, finally, Los Angeles, the flaky Anne gets cheated, robbed and heartbroken by a series of poor choices for husband material, as she tries vainly to be a mother and a magnetic lover, and cling to her lost youth in the process. Oblivious to age and her dwindling talent for attracting wealthy men, Mom’s conquests lead from one disaster to the next while the boys look on with sympathy and terror. Into their lives comes the heir to an art fortune (David Koechner), who steals money from her purse in the middle of an expensive dinner date and sticks her with the check; then Mom’s third husband, an iron-fisted Army colonel and military wacko (Chris Noth) who dedicates himself to fighting the Communist menace; an old socialite boyfriend (Eric McCormack) who leads her on and then deserts her for a younger woman. In St Louis, she compromises her ideals and gets a job in a paint store, and when business improves overnight, the owner proposes. At last, the perfect man. There’s only one problem. He’s already married and on his way to jail for bigamy. Whenever things go sour, she packs up the boys and they move to another town. All Mom wants is security. All George wants is a normal life. All Robbie wants is a movie career. No wonder the boys end up acting as surrogate parents to their ditzy mother (even bailing her out after she innocently accepts a drink from an admiring undercover detective in a hotel bar and gets falsely arrested for prostitution), and they raise each other. It’s quite a task. George is a handsome, intelligent kid with a voracious appetite for books who keeps diaries of his unorthodox experiences. Robbie is a flaming queen in training who knits and wears his mother’s pearls. Once they land in Hollywood, Mom finds work as an extra in a movie western and charms the director into auditioning Robbie for the role of a cowboy. Hand on hip, mincing to the rancher’s daughter, he is both hilarious and pathetic enough for his kid brother to offer a few pointers. George is so good that he gets the part; Robbie is happily relegated to wigs, makeup and costumes; and the unexpected new family star gets photographed on the set of his first picture, with a name on the back of his chair that reads “George Hamilton.” I admit I was surprised by this revelation, but it’s no spoiler. My One and Only is based on two books of Mr. Hamilton’s memoirs, and he’s also the executive producer. The facts are highly embellished (no Tennessee childhood; no affair with his father’s next wife; no romance with Lynda Bird Johnson or marriage to Alana Stewart; and no perpetual suntan). But George’s father was society bandleader “Spike” Hamilton; his mother was glamorous Ann Stevens; and half-brother Robbie, whose real name was Bill, became an interior decorator. George did begin his film career in 1952, when he was 13, in a Clark Gable western called Lone Star, and went on to fame playing Hank Williams, Evel Knievel and Dracula. From barely managing to survive every crisis to supporting Ann and Bill in luxury for the rest of their lives, George Hamilton lived an unconventional life that was destined to be filmed, and there are still enough subplots left over for a sequel. The careful script by Charlie Peters turns a dysfunctional family into friends you wouldn’t mind knowing. For any part of My One and Only to work, great acting is not only an asset but a requirement. Director Richard Loncraine gets immaculate performances from all of the men and especially the two boys. Mark Rendall knows just when to reign in the campy aspects of Robbie’s effeminacy and keep him overwhelmingly likable, and in the pivotal role of George, young Logan Lerman is a true revelation with blazing promise. Tough but vulnerable, Ms. Zellweger is a lonely, misunderstood Southern belle who is infuriating, adorable and touching at the same time - one of those little extra people in life who never fits in, a piece left out of the puzzle in the rain. Quirky and mercurial, she invests society’s definition of a lousy mother with a big, radiant heart. It’s her best role in years, and she wears it like a form-fitting pelisse.