BOYISH in her gamin crop and tie, Isabella Rossellini faced down the camera. For sure, she acknowledged, aging is a bummer. “My social status has diminished because I know I’m not invited to the A parties anymore,” said Ms. Rossellini, 60. “My daughter is. As you grow older, you don’t count anymore.”

I went to a party two-and-a-half years ago that [hairstylist] Harry King and [model] Nancy Donahue were giving for their model friends. I double parked my car out front and went in, thinking I’d be in and out. But I was struck by all these women who were so beautiful and fascinating — I’d walked in with this ridiculous cliché that models didn’t have anything to say. In the back of my head, I was thinking about how we never hear models talk. These are people we knew as faces and names — not for their voices or minds. I saw this film as a great metaphor for aging, but also as a way to talk about other things that interest me, like race, drugs, celebrity.