She's Funny That Way (2014)

Imogen Poots: Isabella Patterson

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Isabella Patterson : [giving interview]  I believe in happy endings. And it's the only thing that's ever made sense to me. You know, I used to lock myself in my room and watch all the oldies on PBS. We couldn't afford cable, which was fine. You know, who needs to watch shows on teenage pregnancy and kids living in the same house screaming at each other? In my neighborhood, that was called Wednesday.

• Isabella Patterson : A bullet can kill, but a punch can change things for the living. Like in "The Spoilers". John Wayne and Randolph Scott tore apart a bar fighting for Marlene Dietrich. John Wayne won, of course, and they lived happily ever after.

• Isabella Patterson : I hate being alone. But when I am, I look into the mirror and I tell myself something that Audrey Hepburn once said, "I believe in pink. I believe that laughter is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing. Kissing a lot. I believe in being strong even when everything around you seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. And I believe that tomorrow is another day. And I believe in miracles!" I believe in miracles. You know, that - that works every single time.

• Jane Claremont : [reading Isabella's file]  A.K.A. Glo-stick. Why Glo-stick? Oh! Call girl? Well that's disgusting. I mean, how do you feel when you're even doing that? Honestly? Are there any up sides to this job?

  Isabella Patterson : Well, there are plenty of *ups*, you know? I mean, that was really a problem!

  Jane Claremont : You don't joke in therapy.

• Isabella Patterson : I always thought the guy who would change my life would be powerful like Marlon Brando or sparkle like Cary Grant or smell like worn leather like James Dean must've.

• Isabella Patterson : Well, you know, you date guys - what do they want? They want you in the sack. So this way, guys I meet, that's all they want, too, but at least they're gonna pay for it. You know, you meet a guy and they expect it for nothing. So this way I figure I'm ahead of the game.

• Isabella Patterson : I used to escape with Spencer Tracy and Kate Hepburn and Fred Astaire spinning Ginger Rogers on the dance floor and Bogie finally plant one on Lauren Bacall. All in glorious black and white.

• Judy : You like fairy tales?

  Isabella Patterson : I think we all need a little magic from time to time, don't you think? I mean, what would Lana Turner have done if Mervyn Leroy had never gone into Schwab's on Hollywood and Vine and he saw her there, drinking that coke. She was discovered right there, and that coke changed her life.

  Judy : Well, so they tell the tourists, because it wasn't Schwab's It was actually a place called Top Hat on Sunset and McCadden. And it wasn't Mervyn Leroy, it was actually a guy from the Hollywood Reporter. And her name wasn't even Lana Turner then. It was Judy. Actually her real name was Julia. But you knew all that, right?

  Isabella Patterson : You know, it doesn't really have the same magic, though.

• Isabella Patterson : Whoa! You know, you are the most detailed kind of lover!

  Arnold Albertson : Detailed?

  Isabella Patterson : Yeah. Like - that was amazing!

  Arnold Albertson : I really like you.

• Isabella Patterson : The problem is that when you inspire people they want to keep getting inspired, over and over again. Sometimes for hours. It's like a drug. Highly addictive. If you don't get it, you start to go batty.

• Isabella Patterson : He inspired me the way that I inspired my clients. Even a muse needs a muse.

• Isabella Patterson : Memory isn't a video camera. Is it?

• Isabella Patterson : Do you know the movie, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?

  Judy : Yes.

  Isabella Patterson : Well, they were playing it somewhere downtown and I see this poster of Audrey looking so gorgeous. So I bought a ticket and I went in. And, for weeks I couldn't get this movie out of my head, you know? She had everything under control. Everything figured out, she didn't need anything.

  Judy : She's a call girl.

  Isabella Patterson : Well, maybe she was just somebody who liked to have a drink and a dance and spread happiness, and if a guy was going to give her 50 on the way to the powder room then she deserved it because she touched their lives.

• Isabella Patterson : She'd been through a rough break up the year before with a hot yoga teacher. Well, I mean, the yoga was hot, not the teacher. Actually, well, it probably was, yeah, the teacher was, too, but I mean that's not the point. They meet in class, and he starts to give her these *private* lessons. And then they move in together. It turns out he had been giving every other woman in the class private lessons, too. Can you imagine? I mean, no wonder her latest book is called, "Bitchy Is Beautiful".

  Judy : That one I read.

• Isabella Patterson : He was the first playwright that I ever met. And he was a true gentleman, you know? He didn't even try to kiss me, even when I knew he wanted to. And, he asked to meet my father. And no one had ever done that before. I never even had a boy in the house before. But, yeah, he was exactly what I imagined a playwright to be. Very sensitive an, he was like the Arthur Miller to my Marilyn.

• Joshua Fleet : The unicorn, you see, was a kind of symbol of women. And this comes from a period when women were treated like chattel.

  Isabella Patterson : Like cattle?

  Joshua Fleet : No, chattel. It basically means they were whatever men wanted them to be.

  Isabella Patterson : You mean, like now a lot?

• Isabella Patterson : If you don't let go of your past, it'll strangle your future.