August 15, 2022
Parker’s faltering sophomore effort (after The Shortest Way Home) follows a disgraced publicist who returns to work at her former boarding school. After representing a director who was later found guilty of sexual harassment, 38-year-old Gillian Brodie folds her New York City–based company and accepts an offer to work as a dorm mother at her alma mater, Glen Ellen Academy, in California’s wine country. Gillian has been around the world and worked with countless celebrities, but she’s still hung up on her high school crush Aiden Lloyd and the drama that kicked off when he started dating their best friend. As luck would have it, Aiden now owns a winery in town and is the single father to one of Gillian’s charges, a senior named Rainbow who’s tight with class president Bunny Winthrop. Gillian is fond of Bunny, who’s envious of viral singer classmates Freddy and Farah Shirazi and worried they’ll steal the show at homecoming. After Gillian helps the Shirazis deal with the media, the school puts her to work on a potential embezzlement scandal. Unfortunately, Parker never goes very deep, and because Gillian’s past betrayals remain unresolved, the saccharine ending doesn’t feel earned. It’s not bad, there’s just not much to chew on.