The Delia Ephron movie Hanging Up, starring Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, and Lisa Kudrow, premiered in 2000 to poor reviews, and it didn’t make much money at the box office. The sets, however, made a big impression. Ten years later, people are still talking about the house Meg Ryan’s character Eve lived in. One look at the front of the house and you can see why.
The story revolves around Eve, who is stuck with the job of taking care of their ailing, alcoholic, “uproar-man” of a father (Walter Matthau in his final role). Her sisters Georgia (Keaton) and Maddy (Kudrow) are too preoccupied with their own lives to help–or to even take Eve’s calls most of the time.
The Entry:
The movie was based on Delia Ephron’s novel Hanging Up. She wrote the screenplay and Diane Keaton directed it.
Ryan spent most of the movie in a long coat that came down to her ankles and looked like a bathrobe. Not sure what that was about.
Family Room:
This hallway leads into the master bedroom, which doesn’t have a door. You can see the lamp on the nightstand on the right-hand side of the photo below:
Bedroom:
The openness makes me wonder if this room is actually used for something else (not a bedroom) in the actual house, and they just staged it that way for the movie. Check out the huge fireplace beside the bed:
Eve’s Closet:
Her Son’s Room:
Note that she’s even sleeping in that robe-like coat in her son’s room. In this next photo that has Lou walking out of Eve’s house, the entry hall looks strangely empty and cold. Almost institutional:
A lot of the movie seemed to have been filmed through light fog, which you can see in some of these photos. It was especially noticeable when they were in Eve’s house.
The Kitchen:
I think Eve is on the phone in almost every scene.
The cookie cutters on the wall are fun:
The open shelves in her kitchen create a lot of display space for her colorful dishes.
There’s a fabulous windowseat in the kitchen:
In this shot, you can see that the window seat runs along both walls in the corner:
Looking through the kitchen at the three sisters making Thanksgiving dinner together:
In the final scene, the sisters bond by having a ludicrous flour fight. I had to roll my eyes at that one. I don’t know any woman who would think it was fun to have flour dumped all over her kitchen in the middle of making Thanksgiving dinner.
The camera pulls back out of the kitchen and we see that Eve has gone all out in decorating for fall:
I have searched in vain for information about this house. It looks like they filmed the movie on site (not on a separate soundstage), but I couldn’t confirm it. The production notes do state that it was filmed entirely in California–mostly in Beverly Hills and Pasadena–so I guess that narrows it down.
If anyone knows anything about it, please fill us in. Sometimes I get the best information about movie houses by posting about them and having readers tell me what they know!
I’ve done so many Movie Monday posts that feature Meg Ryan movies that I might have to change the name to “Meg Mondays.” Let’s see…so far, I’ve featured:
I’ll also be showing you photos of Ryan’s New York City apartment from Kate & Leopold soon. Some of you have requested the house from When a Man Loves a Woman, as well. Do you have a favorite Meg Movie House?
P.S. You can see Meg Ryan’s real-life house here, which is actually kind of similar to this one.
Visit my TV/Movie Houses page for links to all the others I’ve featured.
#9: Monster-in-Law
