Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Starring: Frances McDormand, Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale, Natascha McElhone, Alessandro Nivola

- Reviewed by Vickie

I guess when Lisa Cholodenko finds a good theme, she sticks with it. That's what I kept thinking while I watched her follow-up to the critically acclaimed High Art.

Like its predecessor, this film tracks the personal evolution of a strait-laced young woman named Alex (Kate Beckinsale), who becomes entranced with the (by comparison) wild life led by a been-around-the-block older woman named Jane (Frances McDormand). Whereas High Art's Syd and Lucy were neighbors, Alex and Jane are about to be related by blood, since Alex is engaged to Jane's conservative son Sam (Christian Bale). When all three find themselves unexpectedly sharing record-producer Jane's giant Los Angeles home, sparks... and curiosity... begin to fly. Sam's a medical resident and spends much of his time at a local hospital being pursued by an attractive colleague (Natascha McElhone), leaving grad-student Alex plenty of time home alone with Jane and her musician friends. Naturally, living the high life becomes enticing to Alex and she's welcomed into Jane's crowd (which includes Alessandro Nivola as Jane's British boy-toy, Ian). Soon, she's gone from textbooks and the mating habits of fruit flys to toking weed and locking lips with Jane AND Ian.

Needless to say, trouble brews and everyone in the film is forced to reevaluate who they are, what they stand for and where they want their lives to go.

Several people I spoke with after the screening expressed their disappointment with the film, and I have to agree. While Frances McDormand does a kick-ass job with her role, the rest of the cast felt kind of boring, and Christian Bale seemed like he was doing an impression of Noah Wyle (ER). The story lacked the intensity of High Art and the relationships between the characters didn't seem believable. Wouldn't Sam and his mother, for example, have long since figured out a way to get along? His exasperation with her lifestyle seems forced... and, heck, maybe it is. Maybe he feels like he *should* disapprove? And why did Natascha McElhone's character have to have any accent other than the one the actress already owns? Making her Israeli didn't seem to have any purpose other than to force McElhone to speak with a distracting intonation.

I like Kate Beckinsale, so I'm a little biased when it comes to her work. I thought she was cute here, and a good choice to play the "innocent." But her scenes with Bale were, at times, giggle-inducing. Not a lot of chemistry. Their final confrontation smacked of a bad TV movie of the week and, frankly, I would have preferred her with Jane (even though the film would then be a *complete*, not partial, retread of High Art).

It's always hard for a successful first-time director to create a sophomore effort as wonderful as her debut (witness director Lynne Ramsay who followed Ratcatcher with the far-less-stellar Morvern Callar) and unfortunately, in my opinion anyway, Lisa Cholodenko proves that theory with Laurel Canyon.

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