Brothers & Sisters

Here’s a little treat to tide you over until tomorrow night’s party-hearty new episode — a couple of scenes from Very Annie-Mary, a 2001 film in which Rachel Griffiths and Matthew Rhys played Welsh townsfolk instead of brother and sister. According to a BBC review, the film stars Griffiths in an “offbeat story of a shy baker’s daughter who finds the courage to break free from his overbearing influence. Jonathan Pryce plays the monstrous Jack Pugh, who delivers his loaves in a Luciano Pavarotti mask and uses Annie-Mary as a human sleeping bottle whenever his feet get cold. Then again, he’s par for the course in a village whose residents include a pair of gay shopkeepers called Hob and Nob (Ioan Gruffudd and Matthew Rhys) and a dying teen (Joanna Page) who will be off to Disneyland if the Mayor can raise enough cash.” The highlight of this clip is the end, when Rhys and Gruffudd perform “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun” to Griffiths’ accompaniment. Enjoy!

Brothers & Sisters, ABC, Rachel Griffiths, Matthew Rhys, Very Annie-Mary

For those just joining Brothers & Sisters because you’re Rob Lowe fans, or live in Australia, or are finally willing to believe the show’s not as bad as it was made out to be and may be sticking around for a while, here’s a brief guide to who all those brothers and sisters are. Use the episode suggestions to catch up on key episodes in ABC’s Full Episode Player.

Name: Nora Walker
Age: Turned 60 in episode 13, “Something Ida This Way Comes.”
Occupation: Meddlesome mother; worked briefly at family company after husband’s death, but quit after her son Tommy didn’t appreciate “Bring Your Pet to Work Day” or her rules about callers to the company needing to be polite.
Spouse: William, who died in the series’ first episode, leaving his family to painfully find out about his embezzlement from the family company and his longtime affair with Holly Harper, with whom he has a yet-unseen child, Rebecca.
Children: Sarah, Kitty, Tommy, Kevin, Justin
Siblings: Saul
Likes: Liberal causes, cooking, manipulating her offspring
Dislikes: Conservatives, Holly, Kitty’s boyfriends; had tense times with Kitty, who she blamed for pushing Justin to go to war after 9/11, but they’ve mostly made up. Also has mother issues of her own.
Key Episode: In episode 3, “Affairs of State,” she revealed that she wasn’t as in the dark about William’s indiscretions as everybody thought, “innocently” inviting the woman who was her husband’s mistress to a party and then coolly outing her at the dinner table.

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Rachel Griffiths plays a California daughter on Brothers & Sisters, but what she really wants to do is go back to her native Australia. According to an interview on News.com.au, she envies fellow Aussie actors Toni Collette and Geoffrey Rush, who can jet into Hollywood for movies and awards, but get to live Down Under. “I really do envy Toni and Geoffrey, who manage to live their lives in Australia,” Griffiths is quoted as saying. “They are very fortunate to go and make movies and then go back to Australia. It’s really not been so easy for me to do that. I feel like I have to come here [L.A.] and hang around if I’m to get some work.” She says that “in my ideal existence I’m in Australia with the option to come here to do one project a year and one back at home. I really miss Aussie theatre, so what I’m really hoping is that Brothers & Sisters buys me a bit of freedom back there to do that stuff.”

If you like your celebrity gossip all glamorous and filled with red-carpet appearances, shopping extravagances, and bad star behavior, then this article from the Australian newspaper The Age, about the christening for Rachel Griffiths’ daughter, Adelaide, will probably be of no interest. But if you look at stars like Griffiths and think, “You know, she seems really down to earth and like someone it would be fun to be friends with,” the item will confirm your thinking. I’m somehow guessing that your average celebrity party does not include requests for “plates of Christmas leftovers.”

Happy birthday to Rachel Griffiths, Sarah on Brothers & Sisters, who turns 38 today — a year younger than the character she plays, if the writers are to be trusted. In the absence of a new B&S episode on which to appreciate the birthday girl’s acting brilliance, these three offerings on DVD will give you something to celebrate:

• Six Feet Under, now available in a $280 complete-series DVD set with 25 discs, cast commentaries, documentaries, and some nifty-looking fake grass on top of the box. Griffiths recently won an Australian Film Institute award for her performance as Brenda Chenowith in the HBO series, a nice early birthday gift.
• Angel Rodriguez, a recently released HBO film in which Griffiths stars as a social worker trying to help a struggling youth by taking him into her home. Writes Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly: “Angel Rodriguez (newcomer Jonan Everett) is a Troubled Youth; Rachel Griffiths (Brothers & Sisters) is the Noble Social Worker who tries to steer him away from a life of crime. These archetypal clichés melt in the presence of the two fine actors, under Jim McKay’s assiduously unsentimental direction. When Griffiths’ Nicole invites Angel to temporarily move in with her and her husband (a nicely wary Denis O’Hare), this HBO movie becomes a tense kitchen-sink drama.” You can watch a clip on the HBO site for the film.
• Hilary and Jackie, the 1998 film that earned Griffiths a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role as Hilary Du Pré, sister of cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, portrayed by Emily Watson. In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert wrote: “The key performance, however, is Rachel Griffiths’, as Hilary, the witness, the person who senses on an almost telepathic level what her sister thinks and feels. Griffiths, not yet well known, is able to convey penetrating intelligence in a look.”

We’ve had nine episodes now to get to know the family. Is there one character you can particularly relate to? For me, I guess it would be Sarah, and not just because Rachel Griffiths rocks. Her life’s the closest to mine of the bunch … not the running the family business part, particularly, or the playing pool in bars full of soldiers part, but the overwhelmed mom part for sure. As the parent of two children with special needs, I think it’s interesting that they’ve started a storyline with Sarah’s daughter having diabetes, and I hope that doesn’t get lost and forgotten as the show progresses.

As for least favorite … you know, Sally Field has gotten a lot of praise for her performance, and I’ve always liked her as an actress, but I’ve just found Nora to be terribly grating. There’s evidence in recent episodes that her character is lightening up a little, and maybe one day I won’t feel an overwhelming urge to dive for the mute button when she’s speaking, but we’re not there yet.

How ’bout you? Which Walker do you most look forward to watching, and which do you wince when they commandeer a plotline? Share your picks in the comments.