As much as I was rooting for this film, throughout I felt like something was missing. And then at the ending it dawned on me. The film's climactic scene doesn't bring quite the catharsis or emotional delivery that one would expect after the film makes the decision to lapse into melodrama and nor does it feel like a groundbreaking accomplishment has been made, even though we're supposed to feel that way.
The film is about an aspiring female singer who tries to write and singer her own recordings in the late 1950s and early 1960s and runs into several bumps along the way. Ileana Douglas is warm and likeable in this starring role, but her protagonist is weighed down by a script that doesn't offer her much opportunity to flourish or blossom into a commanding presence. For this reason, she is upstaged here and there by male supporting characters, first by John Turturro in a witty performance as a slippery studio manager and then by Matt Dillon who is utterly dynamic as her paranoid, drug-addled, rock star husband. Bridget Fonda is amusingly uptight as a polished singer struggling to add to her range while broaden her fanbase.
I was aware of this film when it was in theaters but never got around to watching it until now. With impressive period detail and a good depiction of the music industry in 1960s America, this should have been a bullseye. Sadly, although it has its moments, it goes down as a disappointment because it often fails to breathe life and vitality into an intriguing storyline. Recommended only for nostalgic purposes.
The film is about an aspiring female singer who tries to write and singer her own recordings in the late 1950s and early 1960s and runs into several bumps along the way. Ileana Douglas is warm and likeable in this starring role, but her protagonist is weighed down by a script that doesn't offer her much opportunity to flourish or blossom into a commanding presence. For this reason, she is upstaged here and there by male supporting characters, first by John Turturro in a witty performance as a slippery studio manager and then by Matt Dillon who is utterly dynamic as her paranoid, drug-addled, rock star husband. Bridget Fonda is amusingly uptight as a polished singer struggling to add to her range while broaden her fanbase.
I was aware of this film when it was in theaters but never got around to watching it until now. With impressive period detail and a good depiction of the music industry in 1960s America, this should have been a bullseye. Sadly, although it has its moments, it goes down as a disappointment because it often fails to breathe life and vitality into an intriguing storyline. Recommended only for nostalgic purposes.