Film Review 3

 Cast :

• Naomi Watts - Ellie Parker
• Rebecca Rigg - Sam
• Scott Coffey - Chris
• Mark Pellegrino - Justin
• Blair Mastbaum - Smash Jackson
• Chevy Chase - Dennis Swartzbaum
• Jennifer Syme - Casting Chick
• Gregory Frietas - Rick Saul
• Gaye Pope - Leslie Towne
• Jessica Vogl - Trixie
• Kim Fay - Therapist
• Todd Coffey - Upstairs Neighbour
• David Baer - Acting Teacher
• Marcel Sarmiento - Acting Student
• Robbi Chong - Acting Student
• Jessicka Whitt Crane - Acting Student
• Brian McCardie - Acting Student
• Bret Domrose - Dogstar Band Member
• Robert Mailhouse - Dogstar Band Member
• Keanu Reeves - Dogstar Band Member
• Debbie Leavit - Vicodin Girl
• Gabriella Wall - 'Slut' Yelling Girl
• Fanshen Cox - Receptionist
• Samantha Shelton - Rainbow
• Julie Fay - Therapist's Companion
• Kate Garwood - Actress Before Ellie
• Victoria Smirnova - Russian
• Sergei Afrika - Russian
• Billy Ray Cyrus - Russian

 Ellie Parker is a semi-autobiographical story of an Australian actress struggling to make it in Hollywood. Ellie is young enough to still go to auditions back and forth across L.A., changing wardrobes and slapping on makeup en route, but just old enough that the future feels "more like a threat than a promise". She lives with her vacuous musician boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino), who leaves her just about as dissatisfied as any other part of her life, and has a loose definition of the word "fidelity". Helping make sense of their surreal and humiliating Hollywood existence is her best friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress trying her hand at design, who attends acting classes with Ellie to stay sharp. When Ellie gets into a fender bender with a guy who claims he's a cinematographer (Scott Coffey), her perspective on her work and the dating world starts to change. Chevy Chase also makes an appearance in this series of Hollywood vignettes, playing Ellie's agent.

 This film is astounding. As Ellie Parker, she's not so different from hundreds --perhaps thousands-- of actors of both genders running around for auditions that agents send them out on, all eager to show how capable they are for a particular part, to add their own interpretation to a role. As Ellie does so smartly here, they dress and make themselves up to suggest the character for the benefit of the director, producer, casting director "seeing" them in the role  so long as they know what they're going up for in advance, which is not always the case.