Laurel Canyon (2003)

Best movie of this year hands down!

So much average

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This movie is a mess. The story of a young couple tempted to stray has been done much better in other hands. Casting is odd, with Brits playing Americans and an Israeli, an American playing a Brit, all of it quite unconvincing. (Could Kate Beckinsale please come to life occasionally?). The enigmatic ending probably frustrates those who like this movie; I found it to be the only interesting plot device. The eponymous location isn't given its due, which is a shame. The LA neighborhood offers endless cinematic possibilities yet we're shown mostly its cracked pavement. What makes this movie worth seeing is the remarkable performance by Frances McDormand. She steals the show with no apparent effort. Making it look so easy is very hard to do, and she does it to perfection. Kudos to this versatile actress.

Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko follows up her much-acclaimed 1997 debut High Art with this examination of a young couple seduced into a hedonistic, left-coast lifestyle. Taking its title from its central locale, Laurel Canyon focuses on a pair of upper-middle class lovebirds from the East Coast who relocate to Los Angeles.The film stars Frances McDormand, Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale, Natascha McElhone, and Alessandro Nivola.Freshly graduating from Harvard,Sam and Alex are eager to continue their medical studies out West, but they need some lodging while they hunt for a home. Enter Jane, Sam's estranged mom, who's more than willing to put the couple up in her lavish digs. Jane is a successful record producer whose latest charge -- both in the studio and in her bedroom -- is Ian , a brazen, libidinous twenty-something Brit-rocker. As Sam and Alex settle in at Jane's, they gradually lose their straight-and-narrow approach to life and begin to experiment. Alex takes to Ian and Jane, while Sam is wooed by co-worker Sara.This film is a character-study about self-realization.The performances of the actors and actresses involved were worthy of commendation.Frances McDormand is terrific in her new role as record producer,mother,and corrupter of curious girls.While the rest like Bale,Beckinsale and Nivola were outstanding as well.But inspite of its unconventional storyline,the movie will leave people hanging and with a feeling unsatisfied as the movie turns into entertainment instead of providing better explanations about the characters in it except for the fact that they are seduced by the culture of Los Angeles - wherein Laurel Canyon is located and nothing more.

This is a really interesting movie; not quite sure why or how it hasn't received more kudos that it has. The plot is not for the faint hearted when it comes to issues of sexuality and nor is the language. But if one is of a mature age and attitude; this is well worth watching. This is an ensemble performance so I wont single out any single actor for particular comment; the sound track is integral to the film and while present, does not overwhelm. One of the interesting aspects of this film is how it deals with age. Ultimately this film is about reality and ambiguity of relationships and the importance of honest and as such it about life. Highly recommended.

This might have been a good film if someone had been able to say "enough" while they were making it. I'm not sure who's at fault here. It could be a self-indulgent writer/director, feckless producers, meddling studio executives or demanding actors. Whoever is to blame, there are simply too many characters going in too many directions that are too disconnected from each other. Those machinations leave too little room to explore inter- and intrapersonal conflicts that are sparked by plot devices and smothered by too much back story.Sam and Alex (Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale) are a young unmarried couple. He's a psychiatrist and she's his smarter half, going for her PHD in genetics. They move to the West Coast for Sam's new job and have to move in with his complicated mother Jane (Frances McDormand). She's a record producer trying to finish up a new CD with the band of her young boyfriend Ian (Alessandro Nivola). As Alex tries to finish her dissertation, she gets caught up in the rock-n-roll atmosphere at Jane's house and quickly morphs into a hanger on who's attracted to both Ian and Jane. Meanwhile, Sam gets caught up in a mutual attraction with an inexplicably Israeli doctor (Natascha McElhone) at his new hospital. On top of all that, add in a running battle between Jane and a record company executive (Melissa De Sousa) and Sam's attempts to help a troubled young man with a mother who's like the anti-matter universe version of Jane.Laurel Canyon isn't poorly directed or poorly performed and none of its individual scenes are poorly written. The film as a whole, though is overstuffed and undercooked. The characters have to room to breathe, the relationships have no time to grow and the overall story is never able to get anywhere. Sam and Alex's relationship is barely established on screen before they start drifting apart and since there's no way to be really invested in them being together, there's no drama in seeing that union strained. Sam and Jane are supposed to have a troubled and distant relationship because Jane is a self-centered free spirit who never really parented her son. But their family history is never more than hinted at, Jane spends most of the movie behaving in relatively appropriate ways and Sam and Jane probably spend less time together on screen than Alex and Jane. The movie tells us there's a lot of disappointment and regret between mother and son, but never explains it and barely displays because the story spends so much time on so many other things.There's also about as much depth to Ian and Jane's love affair as the average couple in a porno movie. They're together because the script says they're together and because there's nothing to that connection, there's no emotional resonance when Ian and Jane get involved with Alex. You know such a threesome is wrong but it doesn't feel wrong because you don't feel anything about any of the characters. It's really just titillating watching the sexy Kate Beckinsale romp around with the equally sexy Alessandro Nivola and the handsome Frances McDormand.Someone needed to sit down and figure out what was the point of this film. Is it about a young couple finding their love challenged by completely unfamiliar surroundings and behavior? Is it about a mother and son getting over their unpleasant past? Is it about a sheltered young woman discovering a new lifestyle and having to decide what kind of person she is? Is it about a young man who has everything he thinks he wants but then discovers something he wants something else? Laurel Canyon tries to be all of that and more. The result is that it ends up being about nothing.This certainly isn't an aggressively terrible movie, though the ending falls completely flat because the story is too busy to properly build up to it. Watching this film, though, is an ultimately unsatisfying and unmoving experience.