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Monday, Nov 23, 2009
What's Naomi Watts doing in a micro-indie like "Ellie Parker"? Plus: A dreamy, captivating Italian thriller and a terrifying look at Colombia's gang wars.
Nov 10, 2005 | When is a Hollywood star not a Hollywood star? And what is a movie starring Naomi Watts doing over here at Beyond the Multiplex world headquarters, where our normal realm of expertise is slow-motion films in Serbo-Croatian and documentaries about the Paraguayan cement industry?
People, I can tell you this: Scott Coffey's "Ellie Parker" is an indie film if ever there was one, Naomi or no. Coffey was an aspiring actor, writer and director who befriended Watts when she was pretty much the character she plays in this film, a young Australian émigré bouncing across the City of Angels from one audition to the next, one drama-school accent to the next, one bad-news boyfriend to the next. In fact, Coffey's short film, also called "Ellie Parker," attracted some attention at Sundance four or five years ago -- and then his undiscovered star locked limbs with Laura Elena Harring in "Mulholland Drive" and was visited by a little girl from hell in "The Ring" and became, you know, Naomi Watts.
Watts could have just quit taking Coffey's calls after that (no, your first guess is wrong: they're not lovers), but this is an up-with-people story with an ending to match. Instead, she signed on as his producer, and one presumes he didn't test her friendship too severely, since "Ellie Parker" is one of the most proudly and genuinely low-budget features I've seen in a long time. It's shot vérité-style on real locations with an off-the-shelf digital camcorder, and Coffey turns out to be one of those filmmakers who can turn these restrictions into advantages. Watts gives a funny, brave, self-mocking performance, and even if the movie is partly about the fact that acting, by definition, involves not being yourself, her fans will be fascinated by this up-close-and-personal all-Naomi access. (Sorry, lads, the rumors that this movie involves frontal nudity are not correct -- but we do see Watts change from pants to a miniskirt while driving a car, which is even more impressive.)
Otherwise, it's the same old refrain this week: Another list of excellent movies -- which most of you outside the big coastal cities won't be able to see, at least not until they show up on Netflix in six or seven months. Believe me, folks, I resent the Manhattan-centric nature of this column as much as anybody -- and I actually live in Manhattan. I'm in no way convinced that relying on the perpetually overworked and distracted movie-going populations of New York and (to a lesser extent) Los Angeles is a good way to winnow out which small films should and shouldn't reach other Americans in other places, but at the moment it's all we've got. The question of how distribution patterns are changing, how badly indie movies are tanking, and whether DVDs and video on demand are the answer is a big 'un, but let's set it aside for another time.
For now, we've got good stuff! Catch it if and when you can: a fine film about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of Italian politician Aldo Moro, told more as an expressionistic mystery than a thriller; a lovely and sad French period piece, starring the incomparable Emmanuelle Devos as a mistreated 1930s wife; and a terrifying and surprising documentary made amid the long-running gang wars of Medellín, Colombia.
