Finding financing was a war. Every male executive loved the script but wanted to "age down" Iris. "Make her forty," one said. "Still sexy, but with something to lose."

And she was already reading the script for the sequel.

The flashbulbs of the Cannes red carpet were a supernova of false promise. Lena stood at the edge of it, not as a nominee, but as a presenter for a "Lifetime Achievement" award she felt was a gilded tombstone. At fifty-four, Hollywood had a quiet, efficient way of erasing you. The scripts stopped arriving. The calls went to voicemail. You became a "legend," a polite synonym for "irrelevant."