Three of a kind make up a feature

To call “Made-Up” a family affair is something of an understatement. The mockumentary comedy was directed by Tony Shalhoub; written by his sister-in-law, Lynne Adams; and stars his wife, Brooke Adams.

The film, in which Shalhoub and Lynne Adams also act, was primarily shot in Lynne Adams’ rambling home in Boston. The walls of that house are decorated with several of Brooke Adams’ paintings. What’s more, besides also producing “Made-Up,” the Adams siblings are distributing the film, which opened Friday in limited release in Los Angeles.

Brooke Adams, who turned 55 on Sunday, says it wasn’t their first choice to distribute the movie themselves. “But when we couldn’t get a deal from any distributors,” the sisters took matters into their own hands. The budget for the film is so low (the trio won’t disclose what it cost) that there is no money for advertising. They’re pretty much relying on word of mouth, feature articles and reviews.

“This is very piece-by-piece, and without money for advertising, it is really on the hopes that with word of mouth it catches on,” Brooke Adams says.

Besides hitting the festival route since 2002, the film has played theatrically in Dallas and Seattle, and it opened Jan. 24 in New York.

“Made-Up” casts its comedic eye on the relationship between sisters while exploring ageism in Hollywood. Lynne Adams plays Kate, a single woman who has never had much luck in finding a career. She’s taking a documentary film course and has chosen her sister, a former actress named Liz (Brooke Adams), as the subject of her film.

Poor Liz has basically let herself go since her husband (Gary Sinise) left her for a younger woman. And her opinionated teenage daughter, Sara, (Susan Sarandon’s daughter, Eva Amurri) is causing her grief over her career choice; she wants to be a cosmetician. Wanting to prove her ability in her chosen field, Sara wants to make over her dowdy mother, a project Kate hopes to capture for her documentary. Making his debut as a feature director, Shalhoub, an Emmy and Golden Globe winner for the comedy series “Monk,” also plays the soft-spoken owner of a restaurant-bar who takes an interest in Liz.

“Made-Up” brought Brooke Adams out of semi-retirement. After working since she was a little girl, she basically walked away from the business a decade ago. “There weren’t a lot of scripts coming my way,” she says. “I took my marbles and went home. I decided I didn’t want to do it any more.”

Though the movie received good reviews from the New York Times and Rolling Stone, not every critic has been bowled over by the film.

“Andrew Sarris [in the New York Observer] didn’t give us a very good review, which was kind of shocking,” says Lynne Adams, the chattiest of the trio. “I reread the review, and he refers to me as Brooke’s oldest daughter! First of all, do I look like her daughter? The whole movie is about sisters....The weird thing is that the two people who didn’t give us good reviews [outside New York] were women. And the men gave us raves.”

Brooke Adams says some reviewers just don’t get their film. “I think it’s really a unique, original film told in a nontraditional way,” she says, relaxing on a recent sunny morning in the dining room of the inviting Windsor Square home she shares with Shalhoub and their two daughters, Josie and Sophie.

“In terms of business, it’s great to get good reviews,” says the low-key Shalhoub, who lets his wife and sister-in-law do most of the talking. “But I really don’t put too much stock in them.”

Lynne Adams -- who adapted the script from her award-winning one-woman play “Two Faced,” which Brooke Adams directed locally in the mid-’90s -- acknowledges that the theatrical release won’t make money. “But what it does is get the word out. I am quite confident that when we come out with the DVD, we will have a lot of sales.”

They recently pooled their resources to make more prints of the film. “We now have six prints,” says Lynne Adams. “One thing I have learned about this is that we need some kind of alternate distribution for films that don’t maybe appeal to everyone but appeal to a lot of people like women of a certain age, women who don’t have movies made for them.”

After the theatrical success of “Two Faced,” Lynne Adams was approached by Hollywood to turn it into a movie. “That was a straight narrative version,” says Brooke Adams, “not the mockumentary thing. So she started to write that and crazy things happened. Money came and went. We discovered that they were talking about Meg Ryan for the older woman.”

“And this was a good six or seven years ago, when she was not an ‘older’ woman,” pipes in Lynne Adams.

Lynne Adams got discouraged, moved to Boston and married George Fifield, video and cyber arts curator for the DeCordova Museum there. “He’s also into video a lot,” says Brooke Adams. “So Lynne started thinking of it in terms of a documentary video kind of piece. That is when she decided I should play her part and Tony should direct. We just had to talk Tony into directing it.”

Which they say was no easy feat.

“Originally, I had told Tony we could direct it together,” offers Lynne Adams. “That was more comfortable for Tony. Finally, I ... said I can’t be in it, produce it and direct it, so either you have to recast my part -- which we didn’t do because we liked the idea of having sisters -- or you will have to take over directing all yourself.”

Shalhoub admits he was insecure about directing his first film. “There was a lot of fear of failure, but once I got into it and started casting it, I really began to fall in love with the idea,” he says.

The Adams sibs say he is a natural director. “He can spot a false moment,” Lynne Adams explains. “You can be pretty confident what ends up on the screen is your best moment. It’s very comforting.”