I won’t give away the film’s clever opening except to say that it’s
playfully inventive and if you buy into it it ties together nicely
with the rest of the film. Essentially it’s a film about the American
dream Hollywood style: Two young kids growing up in Smalltown USA who
go to Tinseltown with delusions of grandeur hoping to escape their
insulated world for fame and fortune. Oh yeah and one of the guys sells
his virginity to get funding for their film.
Jeremy Jordan and Mark Ballou as CFDS (Chronic Filmmaking Dream
Syndrome) sufferers Dave and Ethan are believably earnest in a 1990
“Dawson’s Creek” sort of way. Ruth De Sosa is the Beverly Hills
housewife exploiting the sexually repressed boys for cheap thrills and
Courtney Gains plays the dim-witted producer. No stars here but no
wannabes either.
Probably the most amazing thing about the film is Lu’s fascination with
and affinity for Americana. It’s hard to believe the director has only
been in the United States for five years; her feeling for the small-town
characters and their situations is dead-on. And Lu has a great sense of
visual style particularly for such a low-budget affair.
