Sherilyn Lawson, left, Betty Moyer and Susan Hess Logeais portray friends who still hope for a film career in Not Dead Yet.

2009 Hot Flash Films PDX

A trio of 50-ish women friends in Portland, Ore., fear that time is running out on their dreams and hatch a plan to make their own short film for a local festival, not realizing that the director they’ve hired has previously shot porno films and is giving their project an erotic slant in Not Dead Yet.

“Sex, violence. You’ve got to have that in every shot,” the pompous director (David Ogden Stiers) tells them, along with “No one objects to seeing two women wrestling around on the floor.” This makes the women realize that maybe their little movie has gotten away from them.

(Fittingly, considering that they had hoped to enter their film within a film in a film festival contest, Not Dead Yet will be screened as part of the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Fittingly, too, considering the porno director angle, the film is being screened at the Columbus Theatre, which once was home to adult films.)

It’s sort of Desperate Housewives Make a Movie. But despite what sounds like a hilarious premise for this menopausal comedy, Not Dead Yet is neither as funny as one might have hoped or been led to believe. The script was written by Susan Hess Logeais, who also plays one of the three women in the film, and it concentrates more on the problems actresses of a certain age have in finding jobs, the frustrations women with drive and talent feel in their everyday lives, and the problems they face in balancing careers and home life. Logeais herself is an actress who says she decided to write, produce and costar in Not Dead Yet because “I wanted to act again, but I knew no one would hire me for a starring role in a feature film.”

The acting of Logeais and especially of costars Sherilyn Lawson and Betty Moyer is first rate. The cast is solid and there are many moments that ring true, although the appearance of Seymour Cassel as an understanding and comforting “shaman” tests believability, particularly with his unconvincing line readings of the nuttier parts of the script. “I am a mirror. I reflect back to you what there is to see, the light as well as the dark,” he tells them, encouraging them to follow their inner desires.

Overall, however, the film seems “small” and would seem to be a better fit for something like the Lifetime cable TV channel than on the big screen.

Nevertheless, it will have a definite appeal to many women who have been faced with the same challenges as the three women on screen, for the problems they face on screen ring true.

Logeais’ Jane is a frazzled mother with a French husband who can’t understand why she can’t spend more time with him and their two children instead of working on her film, which now seems to consume her life. He wants her to sit down with them for dinner and to get rid of the fleas that are bedeviling the family pets and their children.

Lawson’s Michelle has an understanding husband, but has issues with her carping mother (Jill André) whom Michelle believes has given her short shrift all her life. Their later attempt to mend fences adds a poignant touch to the story.

Moyer’s Cindy has tried to be the perfect housewife, but feels unfulfilled with an indifferent husband who spends most of his time watching TV sports shows. At one point, Cindy goes a little bit around the bend and frees herself from what she perceives as the shackles of her married life, reverting to an amusingly pictured carefree childlike innocence, clothing optional. “I’ve been thinking of urinating in the garden,” she says coyly.

Lawson and Moyers are especially good in portraying the frustrations of women who want more than their current situation can offer. There’s a little bit of innocent titillation on screen, but not enough for Not Dead Yet to really come alive.

It’s a sweet and sensitive movie, the very definition of a chick flick for women of a certain age.

Not Dead Yet will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Columbus Theatre in Providence as part of the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Tickets are $10 at the door.

***Not Dead Yet

Starring: Susan Hess Logeias, Sherilyn Lawson, Betty Moyer, Seymour Cassel, David Ogden Stiers.

Rated: Not rated, contains adult themes, nudity.

mjanuson@projo.com