Bret Easton Ellis' second novel was very much of the '80s, but one of the many clever things Roger Avary's done with his pulsing movie adaptation is to catch the feel of that decade's music without slavishly nuzzling obvious nostalgia trends. The underlying score, by indie-flick stalwarts tomandandy (sic), is both inventive and unsettling. Around it are layered songs of a chic, shiny kind of darkness, borrowed from various eras: tone and temperature are more important here than timeliness.
A labour of love—or perhaps of jealousy—for writer/director Yvan Attal, who stars in this French farce as a journalist convinced his movie-star wife's having an affair with Terence Stamp. She's Charlotte Gainsbourg, Attal's real-life wife, so maybe it's all good therapy for him. For the rest of us, it's lively for half an hour, then the frisson fades.
Underrated comedy-drama from Chuck & Buckteam. Jennifer Aniston's fine as a frustrated store-worker who cheats on pothead John C Reilly with Jake Gyllenhaal, in another Holden Caulfield-type role. The feel reminds you of James Mangold before he went shit.
