Satire exposes Hollywood's lower reaches

How brave of Naomi Watts to play a struggling Los Angeles actress in this satire of Hollywood's lower reaches; when the long-gestated project started, she wasn't famous.

In it Ellie (Watts) rushes from one absurd audition to another, finds her boyfriend having sex with someone else, starts another affair, visits her useless shrink and a rum-tum healer who sniffs cocaine, and eventually meets the real Keanu Reeves in acting class.

This is low-end independent film-making from Scott Coffey and it has plenty of rough edges.

But Watts sustains it with a performance that is as self-effacing as it is efficiently revealing of the awful nature of the LA fame stakes.

Ellie Parker
Cert: cert15