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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 18, 2003)
aprii 18.2003 • j M t a a t j 47 P l i ■ w im H B lW l .............▼ ............. ike her first feature, 1998’s High Art (for which Ally Sheedy received raves for her starring role as a drug-addicted lesbian ! photographer), Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon, which opens April 18 at Fox Tower Cinemas, is painstakingly true to its themes of sexuality, boundaries, creativity and responsibility. The writer/director makes every effort to avoid using her characters as easy-to-pinpoint examples or as role models. This must be why they seem so real, so vulnerable— why we, like their creator, come to feel protective of every last one of them. Laurel Canyon is an area of Lis Angeles that, from what Cholodenkos camera shows, is the domain of rich bohemians: big (yet strangely ram shackle) houses with swimming pxxils and sun-dappled views, set hack from dusty roads, with an air more demure than regal. It’s in one of these that East Coast psychiatric med student Sam § (Christian Bale) plans to stay with Alex | (Kate Beckinsale), his aspiring geneticist ^ fiancée, on a working vacation of sorts, z T he house belongs to his mother, £ Jane (Frances M cDormand, shining as | Resting on her laurel album in the pantheon of bemused, quasi objective Californian myth exploration.) She isn’t afraid to find the humor when it’s there, and for a movie that engages on the cerebral level, it’s remarkably sexy. W hen Alex by C hristopher M c Q uain joins Jane and the rock ’n ’ roller in the pool and passionately kisses them both, you can feel the lightness and freedom of the moment— you can under stand how negative repercus sions would seem impossible, and why Jane clings to the illusory belief that everyone can get what they want with out anyone getting hurt. Cholodenko realizes that the erotic conversation a character engages in can quite effectively reveal something essential about them, and McDormand proves beautiful ly that the lack of self-con sciousness— ease in one’s own skin— is powerfully sexual regardless of age. The question Laurel Canyon asks is, “How can we acknowledge the stickiness— the complexity and frustra usual), a legendary record pr°ducer of Left: D yke director Lisa C holodenko on the set w ith Kate Beckinsale and C hristian Bale. R ight: Frances “ too h o t” fluid and irrepressible sexuality (she s w r\ j i * i . b tions— of these things every , i l l r i j M cD orm and likes young boys and girls in Laurel Canyon. been through a number of male and human being deals with female lovers) with whom he, a buttoned- ered by her being with women, but it’s hard to endemically relaxed and pastoral in the geo (desire, sex, emotion) while celebrating their down type if ever there was one, hardly sees imagine something more hurtful or unhealthy graphic setting, lets things unfold in a way that, innate value, their necessity and goodness?” eye to eye. M other and son comprise a mutual than a parent who seduces your betrothed. soaked in so much natural light, is less momen Her answer: with as much respect and empa toleration society at best. It’s a tinderbox of battling emotions and tous than organic. (This movie belongs with thy as we can muster, coupled with a staunch Mom isn’t supposed to be there when they values, but Cholodenko, capturing something Joan Didion’s essays and Hole’s Celebrity Skin refusal to judge, diminish or simplify. J H arrive, but due to a delay on the album she’s producing with an up-and-coming English band in her home studio, the self-serious prep- pie duo are exposed upon arrival to a group of shaggy nx:k ’n ’ rollers pouring liberal amounts T r e a d in g W a t e r Himmel’s story, co-written with Alex’s role is further complicated by her pro of wine, wearing what look to he yesterday’s Wolfe Video Julia Hollinger, is a stoic look at the fessional relationship with Casey’s younger broth clothes and getting high. push and pull of everyday life, rela er, who has been caught dealing drugs at his pri While Sam is tortured by his attraction to a ike so many low-budget indies tionships and familial conflict cen vate boarding school. The brother doesn’t know fellow resident (Natascha McElhone), Alex tries that come from and are mar- tered on a young New England lesbian about Casey and Alex, nor does Casey know to concentrate on her thesis. But something iketed to the queer communi couple, Casey (Angie Redman) and about his criminal activities. from outside the makeshift study r<xim beckons ty, Lauren Himmel’s Treading Alex (Nina Landey of Guiding Light), Interjecting some much-needed levity is her. Maybe it’s the steam coming off the swim Water, which played at last year’s who reside on a modest but cozy boat Alex’s friend Carm en (Lysa Apostle), visiting ming pcxil, where Jane and the hand’s lead Portland LGBT Film Festival, docked not far from the palatial shore- from the city. Carm en, bless her, is all leopard singer (Alessandro Nivola) frolic in the nude— existed almost solely on the festi side house of Casey’s family. prints and lustiness; she’s bemused and exasper or just the casual insouciance, disregard for rules val circuit before recently going Alex, a social worker, wonders ated by these strange, tense, fraught people she and perpetually fulfilled appetite they represent. to video and DVD without an why Casey won’t bring her home to finds herself among. “ofFicial” theatrical release. In the canyon the always-shining sun can fcx>l her staunchly Irish Catholic family’s Fully a third o f Treading Water reveals Him- you into thinking all rules are petty and anything Unlike many of those movies, this Christmas gathering. Casey, who defies her fami m el’s reach exceeding h er grasp, relying too is possible. The young couple find themselves writer/director's effort deserved a better fate. To ly’s bourgeois parameters by living out her dream heavily on contrivance and cliché. T he rest is tempted in ways they assumed they couldn’t he. put it in terms of recent cinematic movements to be a longshorewoman, can’t convince Alex of a dignified post-closet acknowledgment of the In turn, the presence of Sam and Alex— of interest, Trending Water is akin less to works the complicated hostility of her mother (Annette pain and disruption being honest about your with whom Jane and the singer begin a lusty of far-reaching, sometimes-skewed imagination Miller, oddly sympathetic despite her character’s self can trigger, and a celebration of the (Far from Heaven, Adaptation) than to solid, flirtation— forces Jane to ponder the viability grim, destructive stubbornness), which extends to chances for true contentm ent that come from of living her life as if no limits exist to her low-key, realist achievements of clarity (The both Casey and Alex but also to her husband and a life lived openly. Son’s Room, You Can Count on Me). desires. Her son has clearly never been both other children. —CM jn High A rt director’s second film is as good as the first OUT ON VIDEO/DlfD Li A C la s s A c t 2 0 0 3 Friday, April 25th 8:00 p.m. The Old Church The 9th annual classical music and decadent dessert revue benefitting the Bill and Ann Shepherd Legal Scholarship Fund of Equity Foundation. Helping 3rd & 4th-year law students dedicated to fighting bigotry and discrimination. Tickets BACK B Y POPULAR D EM A N D ! $25.00 In advance $30.00 At the door SKIP ELLIOTT BOWMAN & FRIENDS CLASSIC JAZZ Ticket Locations Proudly sponsored by: 1422 SW 11th Portland, Oregon In f o r m a t io n ( 503 ) 286-1752 Balloons on Broadway, 617 SW Washington Gai-Pied, 2544 NE Broadway Christopher D. Wright, PC. Attorney at Law and C.PA I
