PAUL SCHRADER

Bil’s rating (out of 5):   B. 

USA, 2013.  Prettybird, Post Empire Films, Sodium Fox, Filmworks/FX, Canyons.  Screenplay by Bret Easton Ellis.  Cinematography by John DeFazio.  Produced by Braxton Pope.  Music by Brendan Canning.  Production Design by Stephanie J. Gordon.  Costume Design by Keely Crum.  Film Editing by Tim Silano. 

A complete waste of time, both for Lindsay Lohan in attempting to inject some new energy into her career, and for the audience having to endure it.  Lohan and adult film star James Deen play a corrupt Hollywood couple who spend their days toying with film production thanks to his financial ease, and their nights bringing strangers over for threesomes.  Parallel to them are another couple, Nolan Gerard Funk as an aspiring actor whose girlfriend (Amanda Brooks) is Deen’s assistant and has been instrumental in scoring Funk the lead in their latest production.  The snag is that years earlier Funk and Lohan were a couple and the flame has not burned out.  There are a couple of steamy scenes filmed without much lustful exploitation by director Paul Schrader, who sets us up for a no-holds-barred, up-close look at show biz debauchery and delivers on none of it.  Instead there are tons of sappy scenes with Lohan telling everyone how sad she is while her co-stars are constantly reassuring her of her beauty; I don’t want to be negative on a woman who clearly has genuine problems to sort out, but she spends this entire movie looking like a violent hangover and there’s no way anyone would be this adamant about telling her how pretty she is without pity in their voice.  Bad performances, except from a charismatic Deen, an inexplicable cameo by Gus Van Sant and an aimless script by Bret Easton Ellis contribute to one of the emptiest experiences you can possibly have.