Parting Shots

Dani Sloane is a 41-year-old divorce lawyer who deals out breezy, well-meant advice to clients yet fails to see the handwriting splashed across the walls of her own beloved Manhattan apartment until the day her husband Ted--a onetime Columbia journalism student with Pulitzer dreams who has since buckled down to a miserable PR job--leaves her for a younger woman. Dani emerges from weeks of deep denial howling with genuine outrage and pain. Meantime, their chunky, virginal daughter Sam, a college freshman, lands a boyfriend old enough to be her father. Bright ( Options ) makes these not-so-wild situations fresh, poignant and funny. The juxtaposition of mother and daughter teetering furiously on the brink of independence at two very different stages of life adds a wry twist and a measure of truth that is enjoyably uncontrived. (Jan.)