Around the turn of the 21st century, there were a whole bunch of movies that take a series of disparate episodes and tie them together on the streets of Los Angeles. “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her” (2001) is not the best one of those movies. On paper, having Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart and Holly Hunter tell stories about the love lives of complex women is a good idea, but paper is where it should have stayed, because the dialogue is so affected, the performers sound like they’re reading, not acting.

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