The film starts when Christian Bale, a psychiatrist and his girlfriend Kate Beckinsale move to California where Bale got a job at a hospital. He decides they should move into his mother's house, in Laurel Canyon, believing that his mother, played by Francis McDormand is staying in her beach house. Unfortunately his mother who is also a record producer is staying at the Laurel Canyon house leaving the beach house for her ex. He also finds her producing the record of a band led by Alessandro Nivola and having an affair with the lead singer who is 16 years younger than her. Bale tries his best to keep Beckinsale away from his mother knowing the effect she has on people and how she learns them to screw up their lives, something he apparently doesn't want to happen to his girlfriend. Of course it's inevitable not to happen. Beckinsale who is also a doctor, working on her dissertation on the ... sexual life of flies (!!!), never in her life having the chance to experience a lifestyle like the one McDormand and the other rockers are having starts to feel the effect of that lifestyle on her, an effect she could never imagine. While Beckinsale is experimenting with drugs and rock'n'roll, her boyfriend is falling in love with an Israeli doctor he works with at the hospital. Things get even more complicated when Nivola and McDormand seduce Beckinsale while Bale and McElron (the israeli doctor) become more intimate.
What drives this film is Bale's disgust for his mother and how that led him to become the exact opposite of what she is, a reaction most kids have to their parents, the same reaction, Wyatt, Bale's 16 year old patient (the kid with the afro) has and drives his mom crazy. The end of the film is very smart, leaves all the characters thinking about the mistakes they made the night before, mistakes that they'll have to live with, since it's impossible to change things that have already happened. The best you can do is learn from them. The ending left me with a smile on my face and I think it will do the same to whoever has thought about guilt, the consequences of our actions and crossing boundaries. The music is also excellent, I really don't know if Nivola sang all those songs, but I was delighted to hear one of my favorite songs, 'Someday I will treat you good' by Sparklehorse. I'm thinking I'll check out the soundtrack too, the music is really good in this film. The performances are all really good in this film. There's a lot of sexuality in this film, but most of the scenes are funny and not forced into the film to draw a bigger audience. A great film that in my humble opinion deserves a 10.
What drives this film is Bale's disgust for his mother and how that led him to become the exact opposite of what she is, a reaction most kids have to their parents, the same reaction, Wyatt, Bale's 16 year old patient (the kid with the afro) has and drives his mom crazy. The end of the film is very smart, leaves all the characters thinking about the mistakes they made the night before, mistakes that they'll have to live with, since it's impossible to change things that have already happened. The best you can do is learn from them. The ending left me with a smile on my face and I think it will do the same to whoever has thought about guilt, the consequences of our actions and crossing boundaries. The music is also excellent, I really don't know if Nivola sang all those songs, but I was delighted to hear one of my favorite songs, 'Someday I will treat you good' by Sparklehorse. I'm thinking I'll check out the soundtrack too, the music is really good in this film. The performances are all really good in this film. There's a lot of sexuality in this film, but most of the scenes are funny and not forced into the film to draw a bigger audience. A great film that in my humble opinion deserves a 10.