Charms for the Easy Life is an engagingly low-key family drama that features fine performances from its three female leads. The film has a leisurely pace, and gives the audience a chance to get to know Charlie Kate (Gena Rowlands), her daughter Sophia (Mimi Rogers), and her granddaughter Margaret (Susan May Pratt), and understand the complex dynamics of their relationship to one another. Director Joan Micklin Silver and screenwriter Angela Shelton show a real flair for capturing the interaction of mother, daughter, and granddaughter. These are all strong, intelligent characters, but also very different from one another, and the conflicts that arise among them seem completely organic. The writing is sharp, and the period details seem accurate. One could quibble that the lives depicted in the film are a bit too "easy," that Charlie Kate is so far ahead of her time, and overcomes the obstacles in her path so easily, as to strain credulity. It's a fair criticism, but in the end, these are such interesting and charming characters, and their relationship so vividly drawn, that a relative lack of verisimilitude doesn't seem to matter so much.