Director Report Card: Mary Harron (2023)

7. Dalíland

Some films, or rather some filmmakers, are just unlucky. On paper, a biographical film about Salvador Dalí sounds like a sure shot. Dalí is one of the most famous artists of all time, an iconic figure not just in the art world but in all of popular culture, all over the world. The man and his work is beloved and controversial, sparking debate. The perfect subject for a film to cover. Pair up that role with the right actor and you're liable to get some sort of awards attention. This was the set-up of Mary Harron's latest film, “Dalíland.” Ben Kingsley would star as the world renown, mustachioed painter. And, alright, Kinglsey has done a lot of shitty, forgettable movies but he's still widely regarded as a great actor. His presence in a movie isn't nothing. And yet “Dalíland” would be barely released this year with little to no fanfare, ignored by both cinema goers and critics. The question of why this played out the way it did is now one I will attempt to answer.

In 1973, James Linton, a worker at a New York art gallery, is told that living legend Salvador Dalí is looking for a new assistant. Obviously a fan of Dalí, Linton leaps at the chance. James soon finds himself immersed in the unique world of Dalí, where wild parties full of eccentrics – literally models and rock stars – are a nightly occurrence. Linton also butts heads with Gala, Dalí's equally notorious wife, who is currently carrying on a love affair with rock singer Jeff Fenholt. As Linton attempts to navigate this world, and encourage Dalí to finish some paintings, he falls in bed with a young lady himself while also discovering far more about his idol and his personal life than he ever knew.

The first answer that comes to mind, when I pose the question of why “Dalíland” was completely buried earlier this year, is simply... Because it's not very good. Probably the biggest problem facing the film is one that occasionally crops up in biopics. Instead of just making the movie about the famous subject matter, some pedestrian audience surrogate is inserted into the story. This presents several problems. First off, Salvador Dalí is destined to be the most interesting person in the room no matter who he's standing next to. (Assuming Luis Buñuel wasn't in the room that day.) Asking the audience to relate to some other fucking guy, when an immediately fascinating figure like that is around, is a pretty big ask. 

Worst yet, James Linton isn't even a real person. Upon watching “Dalíland,” I assumed the movie must be based on a book written by some young man who actually held this position in Dalí's life. Considering how the movie ends, that struck me as extremely likely. A minute of research proves this to not entirely be the case. Linton is a composite character from a number of real life people who rotated in and out of this position back in the day. Unsurprisingly, Dalí and Gala burned through assistants quickly. This shows that Harron and screenwriter John C. Walsh decided to make a movie about Dalí – Harron has said that this is a project she's spent year developing – and consciously made the choice to have the film not actually be about Salvador Dalí, without even adapting one specific book written from someone else's perspective. 

From a marketing level, I can see how this decision could possibly make sense. “Oh, the average theater goer isn't going to be interested in some old, dead artist, much less one as deliberately weird and abrasive as Dalí was. We have to make this movie about some 20-something twink if we expect the zoomers to see this.” Not that this movie played in more than a handful of theaters... This also goes against the obvious logic at work here, that the people most inclined to see a movie about Dalí are people already interested in Dalí. All of that aside, if the script or star had invested even the tiniest amount of effort into making the protagonist compelling, all of that could've, possibly, been forgiven. Unfortunately, as audience surrogates almost always are, James Linton is a completely bland slab of stale cheese. The role is played by Christopher Briney who is – and I could tell this just from looking at him – best known for starring in a mildly popular streaming series based on some Y.A. romance books. Briney has that blank, pretty quality that makes him irresistible to casting directors and completely uninviting to audiences. His performance here is comparable to a cardboard marionette, unenthusiastically puppetted around the screen. 

All of this, I suppose, is me complaining about the movie I wanted “Dalíland” to be, instead of considering it as the movie it actually is. Alright, let me attempt to meet this film on its own level. Obviously, the premise behind “Dalíland” is that Linton is swept up in this crazy world, centered around an aging but incredibly eccentric icon and all the colorful hanger-ons that hang-on to him. In the process, he will learn a lot about his idol and a little about himself. “Dalíland” at least gets the first half of that set-up briefly right. The early scenes of the wild parties Dalí throws are kind of compelling. We see people do drugs, snorting cocaine off gold platters, as they dance the night away in wild costumes. Linton is invited into a threesome, which Salvador watches and masturbates too. We weren't going to get out of this story with a peek into the mad artist's sex life, naturally... A montage is devoted to Linton assembling some nude models for Dalí, who then dip their asses in paint and press them against a canvas. Dalí hangs out with Alice Cooper and other luminaries of the time, all witnessed through the protagonist's eyes.

However, we never really get a grip on what effect this has on Linton. The biggest reason for that is because the character is so completely undeveloped. He falls in love, or at least lust, with a model and they share a brief affair, a plot point that comes and goes with little meaning or impact on the story. After a few weeks with his new boss, Linton says that he feels like he belongs in Dalí's world, that he's finally found the place for him. If that's the case, we never get much of a sense of it through the film. James is such a passive observer to everything that happens, so totally void of personality of his own, that any growth or change he undergoes is completely unnoticed by the audience. At the end of the film, he seems to be the exact same person he was at the beginning. The film stubbornly refuses to make this guy interesting in any way whatsoever, once again making you wonder why the fuck the movie is about him. Instead of the person whose name is in the goddamn title!

Moreover, there's little indication that Linton's time with Dalí had any impact on the artist's life as well. Dalí calls Linton St. Sebastian, his nickname for all the pretty boys that passed through his home, proving that he considered them interchangable. He shows him around some sentimental spots and regales him with stories of his youth. Which, one imagines a well-known egomaniac (though one that probably earned the right to be a bit egotistical) like Dalí probably did with everyone. The concluding moment of the movie, I assumed, was an act of ego-stroking on the real Linton's behalf, an imagined scenario where the man assumed his time with Dalí meant a lot more to him than it actually did. But, like I said, Linton is a stand-in for a number of dudes, so one assumes that sequence is the work of Harron and her husband too. 

Another big reason, I think, “Dalíland” got buried at the box office is who it stars. Or rather, who it was meant to star. See, it was announced, early on, that the film was going to star Ezra Miller. The part of Linton was, I was unsurprised to discover, written with Miller in mind. However, scheduling conflicts forced Miller to take a much smaller role in the film. Instead, they play the younger version of Dalí, which ends up occupying all of two or three scenes in the entire movie. “Scheduling conflicts,” anyway, is what Harron blames Miller's lessened role in the film on. I have no idea how much of Miller's problematic behavior was well known in 2021, when “Dalíland” was filming, but you can only assume that everyone was aware of the incoming storm regarding that issue. (One also assumes that “Dalíland” was dumped into a few theaters this past summer in some faint hope that it could ride the coattails of the big tent pole superhero movie Miller starred in, which flopped in theaters exactly a week after this did.) 

Miller, in their few scenes, seems to do what they usually do. That would be mug furiously, displaying a twitching body language and sporting a wispy as hell mustache, as an unconvincing facsimile of a young Dalí. These flashback scenes make up only a small portion of the film, which again raises a serious question. The life of Dalí, especially his young friendship with Bunuel and rise through the art scene, is obviously a really dramatic story that would be a great basis for a movie... Which, of course, it has been. But “Dalíland” is partially focused on Dalí's relationship with his wife and muse Gala, which gave the film an angle to explore that “Little Ashes” didn't cover. The peeks we get at the stormy relationship between Dalí and Gala are definitely the highlight of “Dalíland.” Once again, there's the unavoidable question of why did the filmmakers choose to focus on this bland surrogate character when there's such a fascinating, dramatically juicy narrative already right here to explore.

With the way it constantly botches attempts to make a story-worth-telling actually interesting, “Dalíland” eventually falls apart totally in its last act. With all other avenues of making its audience surrogate compelling exhausted, the script focuses on the idea that some of the people around Dalí were ripping him off. Selling fakes of his work for inflated prices and so on. A figure like Salvador Dalí, and Gala Dalí, clearly have some big ideas floating around them. Was she just another one of the hanger-ons of Dalí's infamous reputation? The way she's sleeping with a long-haired rocker dude, and helping him launch his own doomed career, certainly suggests that. At the same time, at this point in his career, Dalí was kind of a burn-out too, spending more time partying and canoodling with celebs than actually creating mind-bending works of art. 

The question has always floated around a theatrical, self-promoting figure like Dalí, whether he actually earned his reputation, if it was all hype. Was he a true pioneer or just remarkably good at selling himself? A genius or a hack? Not to mention the way Dalí's capricious – and probably contrarian, I've always felt – politics effected his standing in the art world. Naturally, that topic is only touched upon here in the most superficial of ways, via one line from Dalí about the king of Spain. All of this proves to just be yet another dropped thread, an interesting premise the movie bats around and never really addresses on the way to a hugely anticlimatic ending.

Ultimately, the only thing “Dalíland” really has going for it is a pretty decent Ben Kingsley performance. Kingsley is one of those actors that always gives it his all, no matter if the film around him doesn't live up to his talent. (Which they often do not.) Clearly a figure as divisive and outrageous as Dalí provides Kingsley with a chance to ham it up nicely. He does so and even manages to give the artist a bit of pathos, during his rare moments of self-reflection. Otherwise, “Dalíland” is wasted potential from beginning to end. A great idea for a movie that fumbles the ball by taking the most boring angle possible to explore its topic from. Maybe Mary Harron's next movie will be good... [Grade: C-]

Director Report Card: Mary Harron (2019)

6. Charlie Says

Following his 2017 death and the fiftieth anniversary of his most infamous crime, there has been a renewed interest in Charles Manson and his notorious Family. 2019 has seen several films inspired by the topic, ranging from the high-profile “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” to the regrettable lows of “The Haunting of Sharon Tate.” In-between these two poles resides “Charlie Says.” The new film from the “American Psycho” team of Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner, it is Harron's first theatrically released film since 2011's “The Moth Diaries.” You'd think this combination of director, writer, and topic would generate more conversation but “Charlie Says” has been greeted with, at best, lukewarm buzz.

Beginning in 1972, the film follow Leslie “Lulu” Van Hounton, Patricia “Katie” Krenwinkel, and Susan “Sadie” Atkins – otherwise known as the Manson Girls – as they sit in prison cells on what was formerly California's death row. Despite his and their interactions, the girls remain faithful to Charlie and his apocalyptic visions. Psychologist Karlene Faith interviews the girls, attempting to reach them. As Lulu and the others recall their days at Charlie's ranch, the turth about their time there – and the gravity of their crimes – begin to dawn on them.

It would seem Harron's primary goal with “Charlie Says” is to depict, in an almost clinical way, how a man like Charles Manson successfully manipulated so many people. He knowingly preyed on the psychologically vulnerable. Some of the girls came from abusive backgrounds, the Family providing comfort and acceptance. Some where just adrift, in search of a philosophy to guide them. Manson isolated them from their support nets, forcing them to cut off all contact with their family. He broke down their own sense of personal identity, giving them new names and roles. In their place, he forged new identities, dependent on him as a figurehead. Anybody who wasn't already vulnerable to Manson's tactics, who didn't buy into his bullshit, was dismissed. As depicted in a scene where a potential new Family member is brought to the ranch, immediately questions Charlie's authority, and is swiftly sent away. This is why otherwise reasonable people fell under Manson's control. He took away all their other options for emotional support, made them rely solely on him, until they were literally willing to kill for him.

Anybody familiar with how cults, or even abusive relationships, works will recognize these tactics. In fact, I think that might have been a reason why Harron chose now to tell this story. Manson's Philosophies are blatantly racist. Part of why he's such a effective manipulator is how he places himself and his followers as special, against an enemy he dehumanizes – by calling them "piggies" – until they seem utterly alien. This is not too dissimilar to how radical factions, ranging from ISIS to the Alt-Right, draw in followers. Manson largely targeted vulnerable young women, instead of disenfranchised young men, but the principals are the same. It would seem, when it comes to charismatic psychos talking people into committing horribly violent acts, not much has changed. And there's value in recognizing that.

Unlike other films, which have depicted Manson as a wide-eyed lunatic, “Charlie Says” acknowledges that he was charismatic. He's a galvanizing speaker and is even sweet and comforting at times. This provides context for why Leslie and the others stayed. Yet the film never backs away from Manson's ugliness. His rants grow increasingly egotistical and nonsensical. He's a hypocrite, one of the attributes he tells the girls to hate about the world outside their commune. During a musical rehearsal, he berates the girls into disrobing. After the audition goes poorly, Charlie vents his anger by beating one of the girls. This is all behavior they accepted because Manson taught them it was okay. Harron acknowledges that the girls were sometimes disturbed by his behavior. Leslie is shown as scared or confused by Manson at times. She even clearly considers leaving at one point. But fear – more-so of the outside world than the Family – kept where she was.

So “Charlie Says” is a thoughtful and well-researched depiction of what happened. So why isn't it a better film? Some of this is strictly a pacing issue. The flashback structure was clearly chosen to foreground the women's recovery, sot eh audience would understand them as more than just murderers. This has almost the opposite effect. We meet the Manson Girls as fawning, obsessive followers. As opposed tot eh flashbacks, where they seem like still reasonable, easy-to-relate-to people. It's just the nature of the narrative that the flashbacks are what we are most interested in. We want to see the lurid stuff. Focusing on the women's recovery is an admirable choice but the prison scenes are slow, often interrupting the flow of the more fascinating flashbacks.

More than even that, “Charlie Says” never truly brings its subjects to convincing life. The depiction of the Manson family is respectful, showing the machinations that led Leslie and the others down that path. It's also somewhat impersonal. It seems we never truly get inside the heads of Leslie, Sadie, and Katie. They exist as either victims of Manson's manipulation or his brainwashed followers. Rarely, do we get an idea of what they are thinking or feeling. The film pulls back when it should get closer. It goes scientific when a more emotional, personal approach was needed. We understand why this happens but we don't feel it.

I want to say Turner and Harron were making an intentional choice there, perhaps to further emphasize the women's victimhood over their statuses as killers. Yet even the acting has that oddly withdrawn quality. Hannah Murray plays Leslie Van Hounton, our PO.V. into this world. Murray projects a wide-eyed naivety throughout the film. She hints at the panic and confusion Leslie felt without exploring it deeper. Sosie Bacon as Katie has a similar approach while Marianne Rendon, as Sadie, goes more unhinged. Merritt Wever as Faith, the psychologist, is fine, especially considering she is given some of the movie's most difficult dialogue.

By keeping Leslie and the others as blanks, something perhaps uncomfortable happens. Charles Manson becomes the most interesting character in the film. Matt Smith plays him as a frustrated wannabe with a talent for manipulation. When his music career fails to take off, he becomes more obsessed with his messiah fantasies and his violent tendencies. He uses and abuses the women arund him to build up his fragile, masculine ego. This sees Harron returning to ideas she last explored in “American Psycho.” (And like Patrick Bateman, Manson is virulently racist and homophobic.) Smith invokes all these sides of Manson, making him a complex and disturbing presence.

Of course, Patrick Bateman was a fictional character and the bloody mayhem he wrought was stylized, exaggerated. Charles Manson was real and the murders he orchestrated were tragedies. Harron approaches the murders tastefully while still making them unnerving to watch. She keeps the violence largely off-screen. She devotes screen time to the victims' lives before they are violently ended, giving us an idea of what was lost. We see the grisly aftermaths, often presented starkly and straight-ahead. When we do see the violence happen, Harron remains focused on the characters' faces, on what they are feeling in that moment. The effect is visceral without turning the real life deaths in a trashy horror movie.

There's a certain documentary-like edge to these scenes. That is something she attempts to extend to the rest of the movie, less successfully. Most of “Charlie Says” looks just fine. The night time scenes around the Family fire place have a suitably warm glow to them, with just an undercurrent of danger. The day time scenes have a fitting sense of desert heat. The prison cells are appropriately cold and gray. Yet occasionally the camera adopts a shaky, hand-held quality that's a bit distracting. Especially during a moment when Sadie tears all the posters off her cell wall, when the camera seems to collide with an actress' shoulder. I don't what was up with that.

Whatever disappointment I felt with “Charlie Says” crystallized as it reached its end. Throughout the film, Faith makes various attempts to connect with the girls. (A darkly humorous moment occurs when a black man explains the racism of Manson's ideas to the clueless girls.) Finally, after recounting the murders, Leslie finally realizes the gravity of her crimes. And that's pretty much the end of the movie. It's an abrupt conclusion and also one that feels like a cheat. Leslie having a slow realization of guilt would've been more compelling. As would have an epilogue detailing how she grappled with the enormity of what she did. Instead, “Charlie Says” ends just when it's getting most interesting.

Clearly, Harron and Turner's goal with “Charlie Says” was to depict Lulu, Katie, and Sadie more as victims of Charles Manson and not-so-much co-conspirators. (They're not alone in this cause. In his book, “Role Models,” John Waters argues for a similar case.) While the film convincingly lays out the evidence, I wish it was more exciting. The director and writer of “American Psycho” making a movie about Charles Manson promises a lot. While some elements of the film – namely Smith's performance and Harron's handling of the murders – work, “Charlie Says” is a disappointingly cold and withdrawn film. The muted response was totally justified. [Grade: C+]

Director Report Card: Mary Harron (2013)

5. Anna Nicole

The Director Report Card project has sent me on many a varied, unexpected journey. I have experienced films that otherwise never would have graced my eyes. Certainly, I never expected a Lifetime Channel TV movie about Anna Nicole Smith to cross my watch-list. On the surface, it’s the sort of material beneath an accomplished filmmaker like Mary Harron. But then again, the life of a sex-pot is a topic Harron has covered before to some success. If anyone could look beyond the trashy surface of Anna Nicole’s complicated life, it would be a well-known feminist like Harron. Yet at the same time, how does one handle a topic this outrageous? Do they play Anna’s frequently ridiculous life for campy, mean-spirited laughs? Or do you look for pathos among the strip clubs, pill-popping, and reality show tomfoolery?

The film follows Anna Nicole’s life mostly through the well-known, broad strokes. She starts life as Vicki Lynn in a Texas trailer park. Her police officer mother is frequently absent, a series of step-dads around to abuse her and her older sister. Mom is determined to prevent her daughter from getting married and/or pregnant young. It doesn’t work, as the soon-to-be Anna Nicole is divorced and with a baby boy by the time she’s 19. Desperate for work, she soon gets a job at a strip club. A chance encounter with an elderly billionaire changes her life forever, soon realizing her secret dream of becoming the next Marylin Monroe. The breast implants, Playboy centerfolds, flopping acting career, spousal death, drug addiction, reality show, and baby-daddy scandal all follow in rapid succession.

This isn’t something I’d expect to say: It’s a discredit to Anna Nicole’s life squeezing the whole thing into a brief, 86-minute TV movie. The film skips over large portions of her story. Her rise to fame from stripper to international sex symbol is covered in a montage. The transformation from Vicki-Lynn to Anna Nicole happens completely off-screen. Her time at Playboy boils down to one photoshoot and a few glimpses at magazine covers. Nicole’s career as the Guess Jeans girl, arguably what really launched her into pop culture infamy, is isolated to two whole scenes. Her ill-fated foray into action stardom with “Skyscraper” gets a brief mention but the actual production, filming, and critical fallout aren’t elaborated on. The rest of her “acting” career, such as “The Hudsucker Proxy,” warrant no mention. You’d expect the legal battle for her husband’s estate to take up more screentime. It’s discussed over maybe ten minutes of scenes. The model’s relationship with her daughter’s father is another topic you’d expect to come up a lot. Instead, that’s all of one interaction. If, for whatever reason, you’re looking for a comprehensive peak into the life of Anna Nicole-Smith, you might be better served reading her Wikipedia article then watching this movie.

So what about the personal details? Does “Anna Nicole” get at the mockable pop culture figure’s soul? Almost. The emotional heart of the film rises out of Nicole’s relationship with her son Danny. The two are portrayed as close from the get-go. Most of what Anna does, at first anyway, is for the benefit of her son. Early scenes of the two playing together or swimming in a pool are sweet. After she reaches stardom, the relationship switches around, the son being the responsible one. He chastises his pill addled mother out of love and disappointment. Nicole loves her son a great deal and the two increasingly depend on each other. Disappointingly, Daniel’s own drug problem is brushed over, happening off-screen in the margins. The only time “Anna Nicole” truly generates pathos is during Daniel’s funeral, when Anna breaks down. A mother, albeit a highly dysfunctional one, burying her own son is deeply sad, regardless of the context. The protagonist’s sole moment of self-awareness is on the car ride away from the funeral, the only time the mostly-intrusive frequently absurd voice-over really works.

You’d also expect Mary Harron to comment more on the system that feeds into the self-destructive tendencies of stars like Anna Nicole. Or maybe on the sexist hierarchies that force women to exploit themselves. Instead, Nicole’s drug problem and the excessive life style that fed it are presented without much comment. She first combines wine and pills to ease anxiety over getting naked in public. From there on, the drugs are just a part of her life, something she routinely indulges in. She doesn’t start out as much of a party girl but instead fills the role, making out with another model in a hotel elevator or getting publicly drunk while three weeks pregnant. Harron employs the rather cheesy device of young Anna regularly getting glimpse of her glamorous, idealized self in a mirror. After she hits rock bottom, she begins to see herself as a child in the mirror. That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think? Either way, it’s fairly clear this is a work-for-hire job for Harron.

So there’s little social commentary or deep insight into the starlet’s life. Ultimately, “Anna Nicole” becomes worth watching for its central performance. Agnes Bruckner has given underrated performances in films before, most notably (for me anyway) in Lucky McKee’s “The Woods.” I never would have picked the actress for the part. However, Bruckner adapts amazingly well. She’s nearly unrecognizable with bleached blonde hair, wearing fake breasts to bring Bruckner’s modest figure up to Nicole’s famous curves. She fully inhabits the part, conveying Nicole’s mannerisms. Bruckner never slips into parody, instead rooting even Nicole’s most outrageous behavior, such as binging on fast-food pizza or drunkenly stumbling around in clown make-up, in humanity. It’s probably the best performance any one could ask of the material. The supporting cast is solid too. Martin Landau is probably slumming it as J. Howard Marshall. However, Landau brings a lot of humor and grace to the part, playing him as more then just a horny old man. Cary Elwes sneers fantastically as the millionaire's son while Graham Patrick Martin and Caleb Barwick are solid as both versions of Danny. I guess its standard that above-average performances save bland bio-pic material, even in the world of Lifetime TV movies.

“Anna Nicole” rises above the trashy TV movie thrills of, say, “Dick and Liz.” But just barely, and mostly thanks to its lead performance. It’s a fairly unremarkable film. Harron doesn’t contribute much visually, save for a nicely poetic final shot. Maybe barely above mediocre is the most you can ask for in this territory. [Grade: C+]

Recent Watches: The Moth Diaries

4. The Moth Diaries

Vampires are fucking everywhere these days. This isn’t news and, frankly, people bitching about the overabundance of vampires is almost as annoying as the crappy movies themselves. We all know who is to blame. It’s gotten so pandemic that even respected filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Neil Jordan (again) are getting caught up in the fad.

It’s out of this environment that emerges “The Moth Diaries,” the latest from Mary Harron. Based off the young adult novel by Rachel Klein, so all ready a red flag goes up for me, the film is a modern retelling of “Carmilla,” the original lesbian vampire story. The film even outright references the original source material. Taken place at an all-girls prep school in some unspecified location, the story revolves around the intense friendship between Rebecca and Lucy. The two are bestest best friends forever, so close that the movie knowingly implies a, possibly one-sided, lesbian attraction. This budding Sapphic love is disrupted by the appearance of Ernessa, an odd (and odd-looking) girl that Lucy seems uncontrollably drawn too. The two quickly become inseparable, causing Rebecca a great deal of angst over her lost lady love. When students and teachers start dying mysteriously, and Lucy stops eating, Rebecca’s paranoia around Ernessa reaches manic levels.

It’s not difficult to see Harron’s attraction to the material. An obvious feminist, a story revolving around an almost completely female cast and filled with such blatant gay subtext was no doubt appealing for her. The sexually confused mind of a teenage girl is mostly unexplored and fertile ground. The movie could have potentially been a feminist rebuttal to the subjugated, boy and virginity obsessed women of the “Twilight” series. Not to mention a film knowingly identifying as “gothic,” but not in the Hot Topic sense of the word, is kind of cool in this day of age. All of this doesn’t matter because “The Moth Diaries” is uniformly dull.

First off, none of its young cast brings much to the material. Sarah Bolger in the lead role acts at the level of a Disney channel sitcom. Her emotions appear totally disingenuous and the heavy-handed voice-over she’s given just further bogs down the film. Sarah Gadon practices her blank stare technique throughout most of the film. She’s totally flat and has zero chemistry with any of her co-stars. Lily Cole has a freakish doll-like face. (Seriously, look at her.) Despite this potentially adding to her character’s uncanny attitude, the movie downplays and prevents her from looking like a walking Kid Sister doll most of the time. It’s probably the best of the three central performances but the actress nor the film once convincingly sell Ernessa as the mysterious, alluring, or threatening presence the story says she is. She simply exists to push the plot forward.

The story is a jumbled-up mess. The movie has a preoccupation with suicide. Her father’s suicide still haunts Rebecca and she considers it herself. This subplot goes nowhere except adding a superficial layer of irony when another character’s fate is revealed. Several story threads are picked up, dropped, and never mentioned again. A bisexual, partying class mate is dismissed early on, never brought up again. A teacher, played by Scott Speedman, develops an attraction to Rebecca and the two even kiss, despite Rebecca being an obvious lesbian and this not being a story about teachers macking on their students. This event seems to have been thrown in seemingly for the hell of it. It amounts to nothing. None of the character’s death contributes to the story and, after an initial show of shock, no body seems much bothered by them. The movie replaces the cat symbolism of “Carmilla” with moths. I guess because moths metamorphise and this is a story about teenage girls growing up? Either way, it’s unexplained and under-realized.

As the story nears its end, our heroine begins to have vivid hallucinations and nightmares. Many of these scenes, such as one of Lucy and Ernessa floating into the sky and turning into a cloud of sparkles, come out of nowhere. The obvious intention is to show Rebecca’s deteriorating mental state but it’s handled so matter-of-factually that it just comes off as another scene in the movie. The film is barely eighties minutes and these moments just pad out the last act more. The antagonist’s demise is handled in such a flat, unassuming manner that any potential dramatic tension is completely undermanned. Mary Harron’s visuals are sometimes crisp and intriguing but she shows no aptitude for gothic atmosphere and seems almost as bored as the audience. Despite her post-“American Psycho” reputation, she’s not much of a horror director.

At least the movie isn’t a PG-13 “Twilight” rip-off. There’s some blood and two somewhat explicit sex scenes. Faint praise, but the movie is more nuanced then that series, since it isn’t just the demented romantic fantasy of a sad Mormon housewife. It at least attempts to address some serious and complicated issues. Attempts and fails. “The Moth Diaries” is a future film that time forgot. [Grade: D]

Director Report Card: Mary Harron (1996-2005)

1. I Shot Andy Warhol
All of Mary Harron’s features seem to revolve around a single, very interesting individual. None of them have a particularly strong narrative but are instead driven by the personality of their lead character. Wither it be the delusional serial killer Patrick Bateman or the good-natured pin-up Bettie Page. Or, in this case, the volatile misanderousist Valerie Solanas.

Miss Solanas was probably a crazy person. But I’ve always had a stern belief that crazy people can say a lot about society that a “sane” person wouldn’t and are often the spring well for our most creative ideals. Solanas, at least as she is portrayed in this film, which is apparently accurate in a lot of respects, proves to be a captivating protagonist. (Or, as it is, perhaps antagonist?) She’s always ranting, screaming, writing, fucking, injuring someone. She is brought to life with conviction by busy character actress Lil Taylor, whose mannerism and speech pattern make a perfect match for her subject.

The small cast is a solid bunch. Jared Harris plays Andy Warhol as a vapid, opportunistic, stand-around who seems to rarely show any genuine opinions about anything and usually appears to be stoned out of his gourd on something. The film takes a very negative view at the Factory scene as image obsessed, drug-addled hacks. All things considered, Warhol actually comes off the best compared to his followers. Stephen Doriff is completely unrecognizable as drag-queen Candy Darling.

I’m not exactly sure of the genre goals of this film, but a great deal of it is very funny. Perhaps its just me, but as the film goes on and Solanas’ beliefs and rants become more delusional and more violent, I found myself laughing more often. It may not go on to become a recognized classic of American independent cinema, but “I Shot Andy Warhol” is captivating throughout and highly entertaining throughout. [Grade: B]


2. American Psycho
I’ve spoke before of films that would not have worked without a certain actor in the lead role, their acting is so pivotal to the success of the picture at large. Christian Bale’s performance here is one of those. Bale is one of the best actors working today and he is astonishing. Perhaps he really gets the character, how much of a dork Patrick Bateman really is. This element as well as several of the psychological twists it takes towards the end gives the film so many layers as a character study.

The film is successful on other levels as well. It’s an obvious, vicious satire on eighties materialism and capitalism. It’s also a hilarious black comedy. I mean, there are several screamingly funny moments in this. People seem to overlook just how funny this movie is at times.

Harron’s direction is solid and her use of color and attention to detail are very important. An excellent supporting cast including Chloë Sevigny, Willem DaFoe, Reese Witherspoon, and Jared Leto gives Bale great support. Probably gory and twisted enough to appease horror fans but the film is ultimately a character study and should be observed as such. [Grade: A]


3. The Notorious Bettie Page
A charming little film. Most of this is due to Gretchen Mol’s portrayal of the title character. Bettie is played as a genuinely good person, not so much naive as just understanding and accepting. Here is someone who doesn’t look at the bondage set-up as something abnormal, just as a scene to do, a little harmless fun. The rest of the cast is solid though I can say any performances really stand out.

Harron makes some interesting directing choices. Her decision to shoot the majority of the film in black and white, while other parts are in bright fifties Technicolor, leads the movie a sort of authenticity, as if the film is less about the time period then it was made in that time period. There is definitely some commentary on the fifties censorship and obscenity laws, though this falls to the background far too much. The FBI investigation angle is purposely played down, it seems. The film is ultimately just about Bettie and what an interesting person she is/was and it definitely succeeds at being as interesting as it’s subject. [Grade: B]