Hi everyone!
"The Canyons" is probably the most strangely disappointing film I've seen all year. I wasn't sure what to expect. I went into it knowing that it wasn't going to be a good movie, and yet I hoped I might find something in there to redeem it. And how odd is it to say that the best thing about the film was the performance of James Deen, the rather dubiously famous young porn star who's making his mainstream debut here.
Yes, this is a Lindsay Lohan vehicle. Yes, this is a film directed by the once great Paul ("Taxi Driver") Schrader. Yes, it was written by Brett Easton Ellis, perhaps the greatest novelist of Gen-X angst there's ever been. And yes, the film feels very much the product of Mr. Ellis's twisted yet oh so glamorous imagination. It's got a Hollywood setting and beautiful actors but that's about all it has going for it. At the very least I was hoping for some decent camp or some first rate scenery chewing, neither of which is to be had.
There's not even much of a plot. Christian (James Deen) and Tara (Lindsay Lohan) are a couple (I think). They live together in a rather swanky pad in the Hollywood Hills. Christian is a producer(?) and I think Tara is an actress, but it's never made clear. Tara is secretly seeing or at least at some point has hooked up with an aspiring wannabe actor Ryan (Nolan Funk) whose current girlfriend Gina (Amanda Brooks) is a yoga instructor (I think?). Christian invites strangers from the Internet to come have sex with him and Tara which he records on his camera phone. Christian gets jealous of Tara and Ryan. Christian does something bad. Tara leaves Christian. And then there's the final scene of the movie where it seems Tara isn't quite out of the doghouse with Christian but we don't really know and we don't really care.
Along the way we're treated to a montage of abandoned movie theaters and a scene where Tara asks Gina when was the last time she'd seen a movie in a movie theater. I think this was supposed to be like some profound statement about movie-going habits in the 21st century but, like everything else in this dreary mess, it's not clear what the motivation is or why it's even relevant.
I had such high hopes (of a sort) for this movie. I really thought it was going to be an epic train wreck like "Showgirls", a camp classic, that I was going to be able to return to again and again and have a good laugh about over a bottle (or two) of cheap wine. "The Canyons" isn't out-and-out dreadful, it's just...boring. Even the much-hyped four-way sex scene is so claustrophobically shot that it leaves no impression at all, not even a modicum of voyeuristic titillation.
But despite all the tedium, James Deen is really rather good. Christian is a sleaze ball but he's an elegant sleaze ball and I have to admit he really looks rather good. As for his acting, he's no better nor worse than, say, Channing Tatum. In fact, Mr. Deen infuses the atmosphere with an effortless sort of charisma that almost succeeds in elevating the rather lifeless production that surrounds him. If he ever decides to leave porn, I daresay he could do quite well for himself in "independent" cinema.
As for Ms. Lohan, well, she tries.
Bottom line, "The Canyons" could have been a great bad film. Instead it's just a ponderous bad film that isn't sexy or particularly engaging, though I will say it is rather handsomely shot. I think it has (or had) aspirations of profundity, but overall, I felt like I was watching an experiment or a well-photographed student film, which I realize isn't saying very much.
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