Writer, director and actress Tamara Jenkins was not a typical Hollywood power-player, cranking out movie after movie and banking on star-power over narrative substance. Based out of New York City, Jenkins followed her artist’s instincts from acting and performance art to feature filmmaking and writing and directing shorts for public television. While most writer-directors would head straight to Hollywood and scramble to stay in the trades, Jenkins followed up the critical success of her debut feature, “Slums of Beverly Hills” (1998) by taking sabbaticals at an artists’ colony, publishing in
