Last year's "The Million Dollar Hotel" had star power up the wazoo - Bono was involved - but still came up floundering, struggling for air.
The same can be said for "Chelsea Walls," which is directed by Ethan Hawke, scored by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and stars the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Natasha Richardson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Steve Zahn, Hawke's wife Uma Thurman and a slew of other acclaimed actors.
But the two films' star power isn't all that connects them; they share similar themes (loneliness and otherness), similar musical arrangements (sparse, beautiful scores) and most importantly, similar settings (hotels).
And, oh yeah, both start with a suicide. Uncanny. The point is: the better of the two films is "The Million Dollar Hotel." And it isn't particularly great.
That doesn't mean "Chelsea Walls" is a worthless watch, in the right mood, one might welcome its unoriginal artistic ramblings and enjoy watching them lead to nowhere not so fast. And yet that's not fair, for the film has moments of beauty. But they are only moments, and as a pastiche of beautifully tragic moments, "Chelsea Walls" just doesn't quite get wherever it's trying to go.
Hawke, who 13 years after gaining preteen fame in "Dead Poets Society," has spread his wings to encompass writing and now directing, has tried really hard to create an artistic masterpiece. He ends up brushing too close to drivel to come out clean.
You see, Hawke wants very badly to be considered an artiste. He's conquered the acting terrain with both fringe ("Tape," "Before Sunrise")and mainstream ("Reality Bites," "Training Day")roles and has now decided to be a Renaissance man in the form of a 2002 beatnik, while thoroughly calculating his shifts from acting to literature to directing. One shift involved writing a mediocre debut novel ("The Hottest State") - probably in a crappy hotel room in one sitting for authenticity's sake - followed by a less mediocre but still less than good sophomore effort ("Ash Wednesday"). William S. Burroughs, and not Jack Kerouac, as Hawke name dropped incorrectly in Monday's post-film Q&A session, did the write-it-in-one-sitting thing with "Naked Lunch" (fortunately not so mediocre) in the Hotel Chelsea, which, coincidentally, is the setting for Hawke's directorial debut, "Chelsea Walls."
So Hawke wants to be an artiste. What better way than to cram virtually every form of art imaginable into one film, shot on digital video, using an ensemble of 30 or so established actors and set in the Chelsea, which historically has served as a kind of sanctuary for artist types. The famed hotel has hosted such greats as Burroughs, Dylan Thomas, Dee Dee Ramone and members of the Warhol circle. "Chelsea Walls," based on a play written by Nicole Burdette, takes place and is filmed inside the Chelsea. Thus, the film largely focuses on the pathos of artists and the loneliness that such pathos causes.
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Without a story (a trick doubtless learned from Hawke's mentor, Richard Linklater), "Chelsea Walls" rests entirely on its emotional atmosphere and the characters that inhabit it. Revolving around four or five main stories with plenty of peripheral characters, "Chelsea Walls" is, for a film exploring loneliness, packed full and probably intentionally it makes clear that these people really shouldn't be lonely, and if only they would just reach out to one another and listen, dammit, all would be okay.
In any case, the choice to use digital video was a wise one, the film's intimacy could not have been achieved without it, and the same goes for the performances. Kristofferson does such a fantastic job as Bud, a tormented writer struggling with alcoholism, that you can't fault Hawke for spending too much time (comparatively) with him. Zahn and Robert Sean Leonard get their musician/drug addict roles down perfectly and get to show off musical talents in the meantime. Rosario Dawson completely convinces as a smitten young poet, although Mark Webber is less than convincing as her husband. But, unfortunately, the usually charming Thurman overplays her role drastically, turning a soft-spoken waitress into a spaced-out pushover; and D'Onofrio should've gotten more screen time.
The film's overly poetic dialogue can be forgiven, if only because these characters are supposedly intense and passionate and neurotic and stuff. The main problem with "Chelsea Walls" is its obsession with the dangers of isolation as magnified in emotionally stunted or overextended artists. Art, schmart; these people are human, and they need to be loved. Well, after the first 10 minutes we get it, so enough already. The characters are interesting and maybe complex, but the film won't keep its focus on any one of them long enough for us to learn much from or about them. And, this has got to be said, the Dylan Thomas recitations, the layered voiceovers quoting great poets, the ballerina who twirls around when convenient ... in short, all the add-ons for "Art's" sake ... they're silly flourishes that enrich nothing. Using extraneous genius to bolster a work doesn't make it relevant.
Hawke's "Chelsea Walls" is, like Bono's "The Million Dollar Hotel," an admirable first-time effort, but maybe even accomplished actors should take smaller stabs when first attempting to direct. With a phenomenal cast, an excellent musical score and an inspiring play to work with, maybe it's easy to get lost in between. Regardless, it seems that in an attempt to create great, lasting art, Hawke merely ended up fooling around with it.
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