"Buddy Boy"

As much as I want to cut him some slack, however, bravery is not always enough. The unsettling REM-sleep rhythms and accomplished, underlit visuals of "Buddy Boy" don't really make it watchable. Its characters and story aren't even remotely believable in our world, but Hanlon also fails to create an alternate universe where they're at home, as Lynch, Polanski and Roeg would have done.

Gillen, an Irish actor best known for his role on the hit British TV series "Queer as Folk," brings an impressive array of tics, twitches and stammers -- along with an impeccable Yank accent -- to his role as Francis. Still, it's the kind of acting you look at, nodding to yourself, and say, "That's some damn fine acting," without really having a clue about what he's driving at. With his permanent bed-head hairdo and mopey expression, Francis is a generic shut-in mama's boy; even the alcoholic priest (Harry Groener) who visits his stepmother advises him to get out and commit some sins so he'll have something to confess besides masturbation. We're supposed to think that the pious Francis feels tormented by lust and abandoned by God, but maybe his real problem is that he's trapped in a willfully obscure art film that makes sense only to its creator (if indeed it does).

Some viewers may find Sal, Francis' stepmother, to be a hilarious, nightmarish creation; to me she's nightmarish, period. Apparently unhindered by any direction from Hanlon, Tyrrell (a veteran of many fringy roles, from "Andy Warhol's Bad" to John Waters' "Cry-Baby") simultaneously channels "Streetcar's" Blanche Dubois and Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" She's a chain-smoking, liquored-up, shrieking harridan with what looks like a dead poodle on her head. It's no surprise that Sal invites Vic (Mark Boone Jr.), the cheerful, beefy plumber who may or may not have shown up on a legitimate repair job, to hang around and party in her and Francis' dank, cavernous apartment; the only mystery is why he'd want to.

When the willowy Gloria actually meets Francis, who has been eagerly ogling her from afar for weeks, she finds him irresistible. "I can't seem to bring myself to close the blinds," she purrs suggestively. Well, sure -- he's paranoid and ill-tempered, is locked into a sadomasochistic relationship with his ailing stepmom and can hardly utter a complete sentence (for that matter, when he can, it's about Jesus). What's not to like? All the actors in "Buddy Boy" face thankless tasks, but Seigner (Polanski's wife, which is surely not a coincidence) has the highest mountain to climb and the least ability to climb it. Then again, Gloria's enigmatic character is only heightened by the fact that you can't understand Seigner's English half the time. She tells Francis she is a vegan because animals feel pain: "Any moles fill pen, zhoost lak widow."

By the time Francis becomes convinced that Gloria is a murderer and a cannibal, to which accusations she responds that she loves him and always will, "Buddy Boy" had pretty well lost me. Purely as a visual and auditory experience, a drifty dream full of recurring images -- an impassive child who stares at Francis every day on the bus, a little girl with a bruised face he keeps seeing in the photos he processes -- it remains a remarkable experience. From the moody cinematography of Hubert Taczanowski (somewhat in the who-turned-out-the-lights vein so popular since "Se7en") to the impressive blend of electronica and Latin music put together by music supervisor Billy Gottlieb, including several original Brian Eno compositions, the combination of technical skill and ambition on display here is impressive. Now the question is whether Hanlon is willing or able to use those resources to dig his way out of the aesthetic, commercial and philosophical dead end that "Buddy Boy" represents.

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