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| 'The Canyons' review: Lindsay Lohan hits bottom. Again |
"The Canyons" is a movie written by Bret Easton Ellis, which means it's about incredibly rich amoral sociopaths, and directed by Paul Schrader, which means it's about guilt-ridden compulsion.
They should have just called it "Wasted."
And not just because that's how several of these characters stumble through the day. Or what they've done with their lives, their advantages and even these beautiful Los Angeles nights.
It's because that's what Schrader's talents are here. That's what its ultimate commentary is on its star, actress Lindsay Lohan.
I say "actress" Lindsay Lohan because you almost have to, these days. Who remembers now how charming she was, as a child, in "The Parent Trap"? How warm and believable she was in smart teen films like "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls"?
Who remembers her when she was still a performer, and not just a cautionary tale?
Schrader, of course, is his own cautionary tale — a brilliant screenwriter ("Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull") and often gifted director ("Blue Collar," "American Gigolo") whose personal excesses and anguished art eventually fell out of fashion in Hollywood.
So he finally went off the reservation — to direct a script by the even more-out-of-favor bad boy Ellis, to cast it with Lohan (and porn star James Deen), and fund it with Kickstarter. "The Canyons," it seems, would be like nothing like Schrader had ever done before.
And it's not. It's boring.
Ellis' script — an improbable string of coincidences masquerading as a plot — has Lohan as the live-in girlfriend to dilettante producer Deen. She's also, however, the ex-girlfriend of a struggling actor who's now living with Deen's assistant, while the actor's other ex is Deen's current on-the-side lover.
Got that? Good, because now it gets complicated — by the twosomes and threesomes Deen hires to drop by, by the gay-for-pay hookups of desperate Hollywood types and by the currents of jealousy and control that eventually turn into a wave of violence.
And little of it works.
Some of it doesn't work because Ellis was always a thumb-in-your-eye writer who built a career — "Less Than Zero," "American Psycho" — on controversy. But where's the shock in rich people behaving badly, anymore? The whole narrative is full of preening decadence — like some faked, "How I Hit Bottom" story told only to impress fellow 12-steppers.
And as for the performers — Schrader should have simply cast the biggest Kickstarter suckers. Few of them can act their way out of a paper bag, except for sullen porn star James Deen, who can't act his way out of a prophylactic. Imagination? Honesty? The man did a more convincing job of make-believe in the Farrah Abraham sex tape.
And while there are some lovely, scattered shots of abandoned movie theaters — the idea, nudge nudge, that rather than creating a vital cinema these characters are merely directing other people's lives — there are no striking images or movements. Everything's dull, tired, washed out.
Including its star.
And that's a bitter shame, because Lohan could — and can — act. She has moments here — all anguished ones, when she thinks about chances she threw away, or self-loathing sensations she's sunk into — which seem absolutely, horrifyingly real. Wasted? Oh yeah, Lindsay Lohan knows all about all kinds of wasted.
But "The Canyons" isn't a movie, it's a small, sad, real-life object lesson: This is what happens when you don't hold on tight to all that you've earned. This is what happens when you throw away what you've been lucky enough to be given.
Ratings note: The film contains full-frontal nudity, sexual situations, strong language, substance abuse and violence.
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