Gwyneth Bags a Friend

With filming only recently wrapped on Ted & Sylvia and sci-fi romp The World of Tomorrow next in her packed diary, you'd forgive Gwyneth Paltrow for taking a well-earned break. But no, the busy blonde's only gone and lined up another project – and persuaded a friend to join her too. Paltrow has teamed up Friends star Lisa Kudrow for an indie flick titled Happy Endings for writer-director Don Roos. Both actresses have worked with Roos before – Paltrow on the appalling 'romance' Bounce and Kudrow on the acidic Christina Ricci tale, The Opposite of Sex. And happily the new project looks to be falling on the acerbic side of the comedy fence so brilliantly evident in Roos' directorial debut The Opposite of Sex. A contemporary comedy set in Los Angeles, the movie involves three intertwining stories with 10 characters. The first story follows a father and son who are involved with the same woman – played, of course, by Paltrow. The second tale focuses on two couples in which one the men may have fathered the other couple's child. While the third story centres on a woman (Kudrow) who gave up a baby for adoption 19 years ago and meets a blackmailing documentary filmmaker who might know where the kiddie is. A comic Short Cuts for the noughties. Our hopes are high for this one.