Storyline

Joe Gideon is a Broadway director, choreographer and filmmaker, he in the process of casting the chorus and staging the dance numbers for his latest Broadway show, starring his ex-wife Audrey Paris in what is largely a vanity project for her in playing a role several years younger than her real age, and editing a film he directed on the life of stand-up comic Davis Newman. Joe's professional and personal lives are intertwined, he a chronic philanderer, having slept with and had relationships with a series of dancers in his shows, Victoria Porter, who he hired for the current show despite she not being the best dancer, in the former category, and Kate Jagger, his current girlfriend, in the latter category. That philandering has led to relationship problems, with Audrey during their marriage, and potentially now with Kate who wants a committed relationship with Joe largely in not wanting the alternative of entering the dating world again. Joe also lives a hard and fast life, he chain smoking, drinking heavily, listening to hard driving classical music and popping uppers to keep going. In addition to pressures from investors and meeting film deadlines above and beyond his own self-induced hard life, he is teetering on the brink physically and emotionally. With Kate, Audrey, and his and Audrey's teenage daughter Michelle looking over him as best they can, Joe flirts with "Angelique" in the process, he potentially succumbing to her if he doesn't listen to them or what his body is telling him.—Huggo

Plot Keywords

dancer, show business, heart disease, workaholic, price of fame, cigarette smoking, janitor, insurance, hypodermic needle, hospital, filmmaking, film within a film, father daughter relationship, male nudity, medical examination, mirror, new york city, nonlinear timeline, premarital sex, producer

Short Review

This is a plausible milestone in the evolution of the Hollywood film, a quivering, pulsating, dynamic, excessive and flawed film that wears its alienation proudly where its heart should be.

Trailer

Streaming Service

1. Amazon Video : Rent from $1.99, Or $0.00 with a Prime membership