NUMBER ONE FAN: DVDebut for Jeanne Herry's dark/funny/oddly real study of obsession

In NUMBER ONE FAN (Elle l'adore), her first full-length film, French writer/directer (sometimes actress, too) Jeanne Herry offers a very interesting and different look at obsession: that of a middle-aged woman fan's adoration of her "hero," a super-popular singer who is equally obsessed with his own career and reputation. What makes the film so unusual is Ms Herry's approach -- which is not from any of the usual angles we might expect.

The filmmaker (shown below) refuses to turn this into a comedy or a tragedy or even the

kind of mystery/police procedural we often see. And yet, as the movie moves along, it becomes, without seeming to even try, all of the above. And it does so while remaining, moment to moment, utterly real without ever resorting to any of the usual "movie" techniques (super-snappy editing and/or pounding music to ramp up the suspense).

Instead things stay relatively quiet and calm, even as they grow increasingly bizarre. This is an unusual "technique," to say the least, but in the end it pays off rather well.

In the starring roles, Ms Herry is fortunate to have two fine (and terrifically appropriate) actors: Sandrine Kiberlain (shown above) and Laurent Lafitte. Ms Kiberlain has always excelled (in literally every role she appears), especially when she plays the oddball outsider, as here. She captures that peculiar obsessive quality that fans bring to their adoration, which allows them to concentrate on their idol to the diminution of all else in their lives -- from their children to their employment.

M. Lafitte (above and below) brings his gorgeous face and physique to the fore, as a top-grade performer so used to the "entitled" spotlight that, when an accident happens that would have any remotely "normal" person calling for an ambulance and/or the police, instead reacts only in his celebrity "career protection" mode. On one level this is beyond crazy; one another, it is simply standard practice for the narcissistic celeb.

How events pile up and go quietly to shit is also somehow expected. But the manner in which Ms Herry handles it all is certainly not. One one level the movie becomes an oddball police procedural involving a pair of romantically involved cops (Pascal Demolon and Olivia Côte, below, respectively, left and right), one of whom is, as her lover describes it, a nymphomaniac. This provides not only some very weird-but-understandable plot points, but a chance for the two actors (below) to strut their stuff, believably and enjoyably.

How the movie winds up (and down) is low-key but effective, turning much of what we've seen on its head. Holding it all together is Ms Kiberlain, who has one scene toward the finale in which she is under questioning in the police station -- and allowing her character to give the performance of her life -- that should offer enormous evidence, were any still needed, of what a supremely expert actress she is.

From Distrib Films US and Icarus Films Home Video, the DVD hits the street this Tuesday, October 2 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Lauren Greenfield's documentary, GENERATION WEALTH, opens in South Florida

What a bizarre (but still somewhat absorbing) misfire is the new documentary, GENERATION WEALTH, written, directed and produced by Lauren Greenfield, shown below, who back in 2012 gave us another oddball, interesting and not entirely successful doc, The Queen of Versailles. The movie begins as some kind of warning/exploration about how our society is worshiping/pursuing the almighty dollar to the point of no return. Early on, we view an Asian ESL teacher making sure her clients learns the really important words: Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Hermès and so on.

Then we meet a few of these "pursuers," including a couple of workaholic hedge-fund managers, one of whom eventually goes to prison.

Tossed in with all this is also a school-bus driver who travels to Brazil to get some major plastic surgery, a stage mother and her single-digit daughter intent on finding fame via beauty contests and maybe a reality TV show, and finally Ms Greenfield herself, along with her mother, husband, children and all their stories.

Focus is clearly not Greenfield's strong suit, and before long the viewer may be wondering whether the movie's title ought not have been Generation Workaholic (which would include both Greenfield and her mom), or maybe Generation Addiction (which could include just about everyone covered in this documentary, as each is addicted to something). We even get a small recap of the husband/wife who were the subjects of The Queen of Versailles.

Greenfield's movie is simply all over the place in terms of locale, subject matter, characters, and themes. Had she concentrated more firmly on any one of these, she might have been able to put together a cogent piece of agitprop. Instead the focus keeps shifting and slipping to the point that you may want to grab her script and take a red pencil to about half of it.

The way that Greenfield and her friends and family keep popping into the narrative is almost embarrassing. Had she made a film about this subject only -- her own sense of partial abandonment by her mother and the effect that has had on her life and that of her own family -- she might have had a subject worth tackling. (Her mom, who keeps smiling throughout, clearly would prefer not to think about nor admit to past mistakes.)

And for all Greenfield's would-be concentration on wealth and greed, this is hardly news to anyone who follows cultural/economic trends. Ditto the need for too much body enhancing surgery. And/or the quest for fame. By opting to cover so much by using so many, she weakens her theses and manages to give us both too much and too little at the same time.

Pornography even gets it due via ex-porn star Kacey Jordan, and we view a Bar Mitzvah complete with go-go dancer/strippers but by the end of this overlong documentary, nothing we hear or see registers as either original or even remotely bracing. I would say that Greenfield needed a better editor, but four of them are listed in the credits. I guess it really is the focus here that is most out of whack. I wish Ms Greenfield better luck next time.

An Amazon Studios Release and running 109 minutes, Generation Wealth -- after opening in our major cultural capitals a couple of weeks back -- hits South Florida this coming Friday, August 3. In Miami, it will play the Regal South Beach 18, AMC Aventura, and AMC Sunset Place. In Boca Raton, look for it at the Regal Shadowood.

VOD/Digital/DVDebut: CRAZY FAMOUS, Farkas /Jarrett's nitwit ode to gaining fame at all cost

In these current times of, rather than Warhol's famous "15 minutes of fame," we get 15 million hits on the Internet, before the crowd moves on to the next big thing, the idea of a movie comedy based around someone so obsessed with getting famous that he'll do anything to achieve it sounds like it could be fun.

For a very few minutes a new movie called CRAZY FAMOUS, written and produced by Bob Farkas and directed by Paul Jarrett, might have you thinking that it will be just that.

Soon however -- after the noticeable lack of talent, creativity or amusement in the screenplay and dialog kicks in -- the movie becomes progressively worse as it plods along. TrustMovies suspects that most of the blame must rest, not on director Jarrett (shown at right), who does a professional job technically and simply gives us what his writer/producer, Mr. Farkas (shown below) has handed him to serve up: an interesting premise that begins goofily enough before quickly descending into a swamp of tired cliches, cutesy caricatures and, yes, more fart jokes.

This is particularly too bad for the actors on board because they are, to a man and woman, pleasant enough and probably quite talented under other circumstances that would show them to their advantage rather than making them grate on us something fierce. The obviousness and stupidity of the screenplay and dialog forces most of the actors to simply serve what's on the page, which thoroughly undercuts any kind of performance they might deliver. The single exception to this comes via the surprisingly smart and thoroughly professional job done by an actor new to me, Richard Short (shown below and at bottom, right), playing a mental patient named "Smith" who doubles as a secret agent with a nifty British accent. (Mr. Short is British, so that was not difficult to achieve.) Whenever the camera and microphone remain on him, the movie grows bearable.

Otherwise, this silly film, with its bent-on-being-famous-for-no-good-reason hero, played by the affable-but-little-more Gregory Lay, below, goes from its cute beginning in which Mr. Lay, accompanied by a trampoline, does a strip-tease and then bounces into a forbidden area, to being institutionalized in an asylum in which, yes, every patient (two of them are seen further below) is a walking-talking cliche.

From the asylum into a plot to assassinate an evidently still-alive Osama bin Laden, the movie lurches along, with all the characters piling on board to serve its nitwit cause.

Along the way there is a little would-be romance for our hero, a look at his younger days as a fame seeker (that's Ashton Woerz, below), a later visit to his parents for some worthless guilt-tripping,

and government bad guys, a car chase, bullets flying, and then Osama and his nurse -- all of this crammed into a mere 78 minutes that somehow seem much longer.

I hate to stomp on what was probably someone's labor of love. On the other hand, since I spent the time first watching and then writing about this film, I feel it might be worth warning others: Unless you've a very high tolerance for the ridiculous, maybe look elsewhere for your entertainment.

From Gravitas Ventures, Crazy Famous will hit VOD, Digital, and DVD this coming Tuesday, January 9 -- for purchase and/or rental.