The Canyons Reviews

Somehow Paul Schrader is behind the lens of this limp-dick erotic thriller? Man, we’re a long way off from the atmosphere and palpable tension of his greatest films, like the screenplay for Taxi Driver or his directorial work in Affliction. Just as two examples of his intellectual movie-making prowess.

 

The Canyons is a thinly plotted short story stretched out to feature length and filmed with a group of actors that deliver performances that feel like amateurs stumbling through it all. It somehow makes perfect sense that the two lead roles are occupied by a porn star trying to go mainstream and a former child star turned tabloid burnout. Well, it makes sense in an intensely perverse way.

 

Eventually The Canyons reveals itself as an awkward subpar softcore. There’s nudity galore, including full frontal shots from two male porn stars and several scenes highlighting Lindsay Lohan’s breasts, and a little bit of violence, but it never plays as anything than provocations without any reason to care about them. The plot is a laughable thing orbiting around four or five characters who all mysteriously have ties and histories that entangle together. Then we’re told that Jams Deen’s disaffected, amoral wealthy elite, Christian (what’s the deal with pop culture ephemera naming dudes like this Christian lately?) is someone to be afraid of and how dangerous he is.

 

It’s all so distractingly, aggressively poorly made and thought out. Part of the problem is that Schrader and writer Bret Easton Ellis are too similar for their styles to properly ignite. Instead they blank each other out by exasperating the same gaps and weaknesses, including a hysterical piece of homophobia best exemplified by Nolan Funk’s faux-dominant insistence of a blowjob with a lecherous producer. Look at that dreamy looking twunk trying to act butch, adorable in a way if you can box it away from the ickyness of straight worshipping bullshit.   

 

But you know what was most shocking about The Canyons? It’s a reminder that beneath those fillers, substance abuse haze, and technical laziness, there’s something charismatic and absorbing about Lohan. She seems primed and ready-made to play a Tennessee Williams heroine, especially one of the most carnal and doomed ones. It’s understandable why she can’t get a job lately, but there’s something magnetic about her merely existing and intensely staring into the camera. She deserves better than The Canyons even at this point.

PREFERABLY SEE THE REAL CANYONS

Movie was mainly boring and the relationship deceite dull to watch.
Lindsay Lohan managed pretty well in her role, but adult actor James Deen's performance was more like hilarious than intimidating psychopath, what he tried to play. Could've taken few more acting class before shooting hes scenes.
Also the quality of the movie and directing was pretty amateurlike. Same as writing and editing. Director was clearly tring to make this some kind of artistic film, but didn't succeed there.

Badly acted, badly written, badly shot and badly edited. I watched it because I thought it might have some aesthetic atmospheric quality but it does not. I like Lindsay Lohan but she is sleepy eyed and raspy voiced through out. The cast did not have any chemistry. There is literally no reason to watch this unless you actually get some enjoyment out of films which are horribly put together.

This is another one I am checking out because of Mrskin. Now I am not going into this expecting much with Lindsay Lohan as one lead and a pornstar that is in his first non-porn role as the other. The beginning was weirdly filmed and edited. Only 9 minutes into this so far and I think James Deen still thinks he is in a porno. His acting is just awful. It was a bit too soap opera for my taste. It's also pretty boring. It also feels like Christian Grey and Patrick Bateman fused together to make a weird ass psychotic character. If you are homophobic or uncomfortable with seeing male nudity this is definitely not for you. Also I couldn't tell if Lindsay was attractive or not. It's funny that everyone thinks says she is beautiful in this and that Lindsay is one of the films producers haha. The script is horrible and has really bad dialogue. I mean one scene the guy says "And then bam" four damn times! It's like watching a porno with not as much sex. To think this was written by the guy who did American Psycho is rather sad. This is such a pathetic piece of crap. I felt really puzzled with this whole thing. It doesn't seem finished and seems more like an episode of a bad HBO show. The ending left some things unresolved and unexplained. Why was Christian seeing a therapist? Why do the characters break the fourth wall with looks at the audience? Why are there no likeable characters? Why does James Deen try to impersonate Patrick Bateman? Why is Lindsay Lohan constantly obsessed over for? Why the hell did Christian only kill Cynthia? There are just too many questions left unanswered to list them all. Don't waste your time on this.

The best Schrader in years. Tight, fluent, well located in LA, the city without center. Movies are dead, as the cinemas in ruins showed in stills, sex is the only survivor, mixed with sadism. Best actor: James Deen.

There really isn't much to say about this movie. Despite it being from Bret Easton Ellis, there wasn't much to this film...let alone much that would make it interesting.

I think it settles the question of "Can the novelist write for the screen?"...and the answer is a resounding "No."

Story
First of all, the plot sounds a lot more interesting than how the film actually played out. And the two trailers were a total tease. Evidently you can make anything look intriguing with a trailer. The original, done in a retro campy exploitation style, complete with poor shaky video, over the top music, and sensational onscreen text, was really clever and well done. A nice teaser for the anticipated return of Lindsay Lohan and the next "mind freak" from Ellis as well as writer/director Paul Schrader.

The regular trailer, for the film's release, was also great. Nicely edited, and again, very intriguing.

But the film itself came off as if it thought it was way more sophisticated and edgy than it actually was. Sure it included some unusual cinematic choices, as you might expect from this writer-director pair...odd lighting, unnecessary but fun long takes...that sort of stuff. Even in the opening scene, for the first three or four jump cuts, the character the audience sees on screen is not the one talking. For a minute you think the audio is out of sync.

Execution
But even with artsy filmic tactics, the script and overall story were beyond saving. The dialogue is just dreadful. If I had a dollar for every time an actor repeats the exact same thing they just said, I could probably have covered the film's budget. This redundant effect (which occurred throughout the film), combined with the diction, made almost every scene feel scripted, but without dialogue. As in, you felt like these were people playing pretend because what they were saying came off as forced, and unnatural. It's difficult to tell how much of it was actually in the script and how much of the film was ad-libbed. People just don't talk this way. It was like watching a student film.

The story itself wasn't any better. The plot reads:

"When Christian, an L.A. trust-fund kid with casual ties to Hollywood, learns of a secret affair between his girlfriend Tara and the lead of his film project, Ryan, he spirals out of control, and his cruel mind games escalate into an act of bloody violence."

Sounds like a psychological thriller, with the common love triangle element included. And that is basically what the film is about...but this is one of those rare moments where the plot is more like a real estate ad than a story summary. More often than not, it's a bit difficult to distill an entire feature film into a sentence or two. What you get is usually a decent synopsis capturing the core of the narrative, but leaving all detail, and even a significant sub-plot or two completely out...so that when you see the film, it's a fuller meal than what you read on the menu.

But in the case of The Canyons, there's so little to work with, the plot summary actually needs to be embellished like a newspaper blurb about the fixer-upper for sale on the edge of town. Notice the emotive and sensational word choices: "spirals out of control", "cruel mind games escalate into an act of bloody violence". This all sounds like a normal movie...an establishment of normalcy, then a catalyst, then escalation, and a climax. The problem is, The Canyons doesn't include any of that. It's all just one long plateau. There is no escalation, there is no climax. The characters are all exactly the same throughout the film, and the audience is never given a reason to care about any of them.

Casting
Of course most of the anticipation for the film came from Lindsay Lohan's return to the silver screen after her stint in rehab following numerous arrests. She was "okay" as Tera, the protagonist. (Although a protagonist case could also be made for Ryan.) She still carries a bit of acting talent, and for the most part was believable. Again the script carries most of the blame. However, it's not as if she and the role were made for each other, and it could have easily been done better by just about any other Hollywood actress in the demographic. I could see a Christina Ricci or Evan Rachel Wood filling the role quite well.

Veteran porn actor James Deen was an acceptable choice as the antagonist Christian. He looks the part, and can portray the narcissistic asshole role decently well. But a scene with his therapist in which he exposes vulnerability about not being in control during a sexual encounter did feel out of place and a bit hard to buy into.

Nolan Gerard Funk was perfectly fine as the young struggling actor Ryan. This was a decent choice, and probably the best part of the film.

Conclusions
Overall, the picture was mostly a "good try". It seemed like the film was just trying so hard to be something that it never quite reached. I think Ellis hit the nail on the head: "The film is so languorous. It's an hour 30, and it seems like it's three hours long. I saw this as a pranky noirish thriller, but Schrader turned it into, well, a Schrader film."

While I've never heard of such a thing, I'd be interested to see a "writer's cut"...just to see if Ellis could turn it around. But given the dialogue he wrote, it's doubtful. Directing was certainly not this film's entire downfall.

Score
Basically the only things redeeming about the picture were the halfway decent acting, unusual filmic choices, and the fact that it looked good. This, and the inclusion of Lohan, Deen, and Funk are the only reason you could tell the difference between this film and a total amateur production. I give it between a 4.5