Landscapes, foreign and familiar

IN “Rumor Has It,” Jennifer Aniston stars as Sarah Huttinger, a young woman who is marrying her longtime boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) -- even though she has serious doubts.

When Sarah goes home to Pasadena for her sister’s wedding, she learns a deep, dark secret about her mother and her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) and begins to search for the man (Kevin Costner) who may have the answers she’s looking for.

The conceit of the film is that Sarah’s family was the inspiration for the Robinsons in Charles Webb’s novel and 1967 film classic “The Graduate.” “When ‘The Graduate’ was written and the movie came out, there were rumors running through Pasadena that it was based on some real people,” director Rob Reiner said. “I found out later through Charles Webb that it was.”

Reiner knows the shadow of “The Graduate” looms over “Rumor Has It,” which opens Christmas Day, and he is quick to quell expectations. “There is no way we are going to live up to ‘The Graduate.’ ... This is not a sequel to ‘The Graduate.’ Using ‘The Graduate’ as kind of a springboard is kind of fun, but it’s really more about Jennifer’s character. It is about this emotional journey about discovering who she is.”