The Tribes of Palos Verdes: A Novel by Joy Nicholson Joy Nicholson's The Tribes of Palos Verdes is a Los Angeles Times bestseller and now a major motion picture starring Jennifer Garner, Maika Monroe, and Cody Fern, Joy Nicholson's The Tribes of Palos Verdes is a Los Angeles Times bestseller and now a major motion picture starring Jennifer Garner, Maika Monroe, and Cody Fern, Film Review: The Tribes of Palos Verdes | Film Journal, The Tribes of Palos Verdes is a 2017 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Emmett Malloy and Brendan Malloy, from a screenplay by Karen Croner. It is based upon the novel of the same name by Joy Nicholson. The Tribes of Palos Verdes | Fandango. The actors are energized, but the camera enervates. The colors have been bled from the California sunshine, and the camera alternates wanly between shaky close-ups and indifferent establishing shots. In “The Tribes of Palos Verdes,” even the sea seems stifled. The Tribes of Palos Verdes: A Novel: Joy Nicholson. Based on a 1997 novel by Joy Nicholson, “The Tribes of Palos Verdes” immediately tips the viewer off with the faux-sociology of its blandly ironic title. The story of an affluent family breaking apart after a move from Michigan to the tony coastal town in Los Angeles County, the movie is..