`Crazy In Love' On Bainbridge Island

"The men that I know are fascinated by this movie," said director Martha Coolidge, talking about "Crazy in Love."

"It's the most women's-point-of-view movie I've ever made, and interestingly, it's more fascinating to men. Because of the truthfulness of the relationships, they see something. They identify with it, I think. Or they understand it."

"Crazy in Love," premiering today at 5 p.m. on TNT cable (repeating at 7 and 9 tonight, 1 p.m. Thursday, 7 p.m. Friday and next week on Aug. 16, 18 and 22)), focuses on three generations of women living in a family compound on an island in Puget Sound.

Coolidge is the director responsible for "Rambling Rose," the 1991 film that won Oscar nominations for Laura Dern and Diane Ladd and included a sterling performance by Robert Duvall.

"This one," she said, "is not a typical television movie."

It certainly isn't. For one thing, "Crazy in Love" has an excellent cast - Holly Hunter, Gena Rowlands, Frances McDormand and Herta Ware, with Bill Pullman and Julian Sands. It has an unusual story that takes unforeseen turns. And it has the beautiful Puget Sound area setting.

Hunter plays Georgina Swift Symonds, who lives with Nick, a lawyer, in the family compound. Clare, played by McDormand, lives with her husband and two children elsewhere on the estate. Both the men commute by seaplane to Seattle. The sisters' mother, Honora (Rowlands), and grandmother, Pem (Ware), occupy the rambling main house.

For Hunter, 34, who won the New York Film Critics Award and an Oscar nomination for "Broadcast News" and an Emmy for NBC's "Roe vs. Wade," the movie meant a return to Washington, where she made "Always" with Richard Dreyfuss.

Coolidge, 45, worked in Seattle earlier when she directed "Plain Clothes" (1988), filmed largely in Ballard.

"Crazy in Love" was shot on Bainbridge Island in a three-building compound built in the 1930s by a ship's captain and still occupied by the Powell family. (The home movies featured in "Crazy In Love" were taken at a salmon bake the Powells hosted for their church congregation.)

The script was written by a man, Gerald Ayres, based on Luanne Rice's novel. Ayres also did the script for Cybill Shepherd's recent television movie, "Stormy Weathers."

"This is not an all-women's project, and certainly the movie isn't just for women," explained co-producer Joan Stein. "Gerry brought in a much-needed male sensibility. But we were able to enrich the story with subtleties and tones."