Ally Sheedy-Lucy Berliner

Radha Mitchell-Syd

Tammy Grimes-Lucy's Boss

Patricia Clarkson-Greta

Gabriel Mann-James

I believ that it is up to me to be the one critc that dosne't love this film. All of the other little film critics out there have been proclaming this one of the year's best film. I just don't seem to get what all of those critics see in this film. Sure, Ally Sheedy gives one of the best performances of the year. It's very edgy and realistic, and it looks like it could spark a comeback for this underrated actress who's talent I've proclaimed since I first saw her in The Breakfast Club. But aside from that this is pretty simple paint by numbers film making.

Lisa Cholodenko, who wrote and directed this film, sees to think that if she just puts in heroine, art, and lesbianism she can come up with a great film. She comes up withe claustrophbic texture of a gritty art film, but she lacks the substance that made such films as Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Pulp Fiction such great films. All of the elements of this film seem simply pasted on, without any real motivation or meaning to any of it.

This film is about a woman named Syd who lives in an apartment with her boyfreind, James. One day she goes over to her neighbor's apartment to complain about a water problem. But instead she begins to fall in love with her heroin shooting, picture drawing, former celebrity, neighbor named Lucy. She evntually gets sucked into her world.

Along for the ride are Lucy's other lover named Greta and Arnie, who doesn't seem to have much point besides getting high and laying about.

Some other pointless stuff happens that I believ I should tell you about anyway, as you may find more of a point in them than I did. Lucy and Greta have sex, and Greta falls asleep, probaly due to a heroin hang-over. She also falls asleep at a resteraunt. Perhaps these scenes were there to show us how the character's lives were falling apart, but since we don't really care about these characters anyway, these scenes jut waste a lot of time.

The whole just seems like an execuse for good acting by Sheedy. That would be o'kay if she wasn't just one person attempting to better a film that was hopeless from the beggining.