While actress Rosanna Arquette was making her documentary "'Searching for Debra Winger," she ran into Frances McDormand in a restaurant ladies' room in France. In the scene, Ms. Arquette explains that the subject of her movie is actresses, their love for their art, the tug of war between career and family, and the terrible fate of getting older in Hollywood.

Ms. McDormand, who was 44 at the time (she's 46 now), says she has a plan that involves cosmetic surgery: not having it. Ten years from now, she says, "stories are going to need to be told about 54- year-old women, but there aren't going to be any women who look 54." So she'll get all the roles.

Teri Garr, 53, hopes she's right. "There are people that are my age and older that still exist in the world," she says, and writers who write about them. "So there must be parts for us." You'd think.

"Searching for Debra Winger," a surprisingly articulate and captivating film, asks some old questions that seem new as each generation of women encounters them. Ms. Arquette, the director, is a 44-year-old actress and mother with a lot of famous friends.

Her interview subjects include Gwyneth Paltrow, Meg Ryan, Vanessa Redgrave, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Ally Sheedy, Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Fonda, Diane Lane and others.

"People started to ask me when I was like 35, are you worried that you're not going to work anymore?" Ms. Griffith, 46, says. Ms. Hannah, 42, says people were shocked that she was playing a teenager's mother.

Hollywood, like Madison Avenue, loves youth and the young. Or at least that's been the case for the last forty years. But the success last year of "Something's Got to Give" with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, will spawn a new era in Hollywood where movies for maturing audiences, featuring (gasp!) maturing actors and actresses, will grace cineplexes everywhere.

And Frances McDormand, with her unaltered face, will indeed land starring roles as a 54-year-old.

Watching for Change

Watch "Searching for Debra Wringer" and you'll hear 40-something actresses profess a desire to stay productive in their chosen field, but in a way that allows them to also have a family and other interests. From the older actresses you'll hear regret and remorse at sacrificing family for career. From the younger ones you'll hear that they plan to "have it all."

What you'll also hear is Maslov's Hierarchy of Needs coming to life. You'll hear the march towards self- actualization. The younger actresses are still more outwardly-, or socially-driven. Those in their 50's and older are more inwardly-focused or self-driven. Those in their 40's are going through the transition. It makes for fascinating theater to hear the older women talk about what matters to them now isn't what others think or want for them, but what they think or want for themselves.

It's also clear from the movie that the previous generation of actresses, those from the "Greatest Generation," have had to compete with the vast number of Boomer actresses who came on the scene and began taking away parts when the older generation turned 30 and older. So to stay competitive, they used every conceivable technique - from surgery to herbal concoctions - to stop the aging process.

Think Cher. Julie Andrews. Carol Burnett. They think they stopped the clock. These 40-something actresses think they've lost their minds.

Boomer actresses like Frances McDormand won't stop the clock. Oh, they may try botox or some other simple procedure to steal a year or two. But they won't stop aging because older Boomers will soon permeate everything in our culture, and therefore, getting older will become acceptable (the majority rules).

When it happens in movies, it will happen in commercials. Just watch.

Brent Green, author of "Marketing to Leading-Edge Boomers," and friend of the Boomer Project, recently authored a long and interesting piece for Advertising and Marketing Review magazine.