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LAUREL CANYON Send This Review to a Friend
Frances McDormand has a towering showcase of a role in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's "Laurel Canyon," and seeing McDormand is enough reason to head for this film. But there are further attributes, including other good performances and the overall look at how people from one milieu can behave in dangerous but luring new surroundings. If you need more encouragement, the film is the only one I can recall in which a fiancée and her intended's mother strike sexual sparks with each other.
McDormand plays Jane, a record producer with a Laurel Canyon home in the Hollywood Hills. She has lived as a free spirit with a succession of lovers and is on the flaky side, but has been successful in her profession. Jane's son Sam (Christian Bale) lives in the East, and he and his girlfriend Alex (Kate Beckinsale) have graduated Harvard Medical School. They each have further studies, for which they decide to move to Los Angeles. Jane's house is supposedly free for them to stay in for a while, but when they arrive, Jane is still there, busy producing a record with a British band and cavorting with her much younger new lover, Ian (Alessandro Nivola), who is the group's lead singer.
There are mother-son issues aplenty to work out. Sam has been embarrassed about his mom's behavior through the years, but Alex, who is normally on the shy side becomes intrigued by Jane and her entourage. She gets more and more involved and is vulnerable to the seductive moves of Ian, and the sensuality leads to the possibility of a threesome that includes Jane. It is interesting to watch the changes in Alex's personality, and the conflict that arises for Jane.
Sam isn't exactly idle through all of this. A play is made for him by medical resident Sara, an Israeli woman played by Natascha McElhone. She's an eyeful and very, very inviting. Sam struggles against his instincts as he wants to remain faithful to Alex, but Sara is a temptation in looks and in her eagerness to become involved with him. McElhone's eyes alone would be formidable to overcome.
The stage is set for various kinds of upheavals, and Cholodenko explores them with freshness. McDormand has a great scene in which she talks to Sam about the kind of mother she has been and of her love for him, and he in turn has to learn to be more understanding of her. Effectively shot, "Laurel Canyon" is consistently absorbing and different, with Christian Bale turning in a seasoned performance and Beckinsale making Alex convincing in her development as she opens herself to experiences far removed from her life up to that point. Nivola is also a strong, appealing force in the film. The music is lively too, with Nivola doing his own singing. But it is McDormand who steals this picture. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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