Art echoes reality
in the layer-laden
‘Ellie Parker’"Ellie Parker"Screens at 2:45 p.m. today at the Hawai'i Convention Center as part of the Hawaii International Film Festival
Review by Gary C.W. Chun If "making it" in Hollywood means knowing the right people, 34-year-old, Kailua-born Scott Coffey is on the fast track to filmmaking notoriety.
gchun@starbulletin.comHis video feature, "Ellie Parker," stars hot-actress-of-the-moment Naomi Watts, who, with Coffey, is both the film's co-producer and fellow cast member of David Lynch's riveting "Mulholland Dr." To extend this Lynchian connection even further, Coffey and Lynch starred in a 20-minute video short, "Gray Matter," that HIFF screened last year.
Such is the incestuous milieu of the Southern California industry town, and Coffey and Watts capture its manic spirit perfectly. Shot with a small digital video camera with available lighting and ambient sound, Watts convincingly plays a struggling actress from Australia (not a stretch in that until recently she was a struggling actress from Australia) going from audition to audition, looking for a break on her lonnnngg road to stardom.
Divided into four parts, "Ellie Parker" was filmed off and on over a two-year period. The first part, "I Sucked It Good" (where Parker goes from auditioning for a Southern belle to a New York City junkie whore character, changing makeup and costume while driving), was originally done a year ago, six months after the filming of the TV pilot version of "Mulholland Dr." that Lynch made for, and then was rejected by, ABC. The three remaining pieces, "Monkeys," "Act-Off" and "Call-Back," were done earlier this year.
In the best-face-forward atmosphere of Hollywood, Watts earlier was a recipient of the shoddy treatment given her film character. In this month's Interview magazine, Watts recalled having "to drive for hours into (San Fernando Valley) to pick up three bits of (script) for some horrendous piece of s---, then go back the next day and line up for two hours to meet the casting director, who would barely give me eye contact. It was humiliating."
But such are the struggles for Ellie Parker. "How was I?" and "I can try it another way" are two phrases that seem to make up the ongoing mantra for every lonely hopeful trying to find an in into the star-making machinery. Coffey tends to go to extreme close-ups that not only show Parker inhabiting whatever character she's auditioning for, capturing the magic reality of the moment, but also how Watts' performance shines through the characterization of Parker.
Between auditions, therapy sessions and acting classes, Parker's life is spent running in circles. In speaking with her therapist, she says she "feels suffocated by this city, waiting for my life to start. It's all one big rehearsal, and I'm scared to start my life."
There's a great scene between Parker and a fellow Australian actress-friend in which they compete to see who can shed tears first on command. Her friend is trying to do it on pure technique, and Parker is trying to draw on some past hurt, but it's a past filled with about as much emotional angst as "a shallow birdbath."
Lynch's casting director, Johanna Ray (basically playing herself), and Mark Pellegrino, another "Mulholland Dr." cast member, who plays Parker's spacy and unfaithful musician boyfriend, round out the cast. Coffey has a role as a pathetic Hollywood scene wannabe, trying to both work his way up the food chain and impress Parker with his supposed "close and personal" business connections.
One scene has the couple at the local House of Blues, checking out his "friend's band," which just happens to be Dogstar, so there's a brief cameo by Keanu Reeves.
Even the grand concept of art over commerce gets a raking-over in the final segment, as Parker finally gets a callback for the Southern belle role, only to find out that the movie's new producers are young, arty and wasted know-nothings from Russia.
The irony of playing such a character as Ellie Parker must not be lost on Watts herself, as her own breakout role as a starry-eyed actress in "Mulholland Dr." contains a pivotal scene that involves an audition. It's here that Watts' character reveals she may be harboring a deep, dark secret that is pushing her to want to be a Hollywood star.
Or maybe not. After all, it could be just ACTING!!
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