A poker table is the backdrop for a group of friends to play out their anxieties, fears, desires, pettiness & anything else that crops up.
The young, entertainment-industry-wannabes in LA are by and large savaged; the movie works because it isn't only a send-up of self-absorbed Angelenos (though it is that). First, it is pitch-perfect in its treatment of these Beautiful People (at least to themselves they are): the mix of self-importance and self-loathing is dead-on, and the characters' foibles and frustrations (interpersonal, creative, familial, sexual, substance-related and more) will be familiar to most of us, without being trite.
Second, it is clear that Loheed feels for these characters, so that when he does savage them, it is lovingly rendered. This tenderness & care for the characters is what prevents the movie from being merely an exercise.
But even if it were just an exercise, it is a success on that score as well: Loheed has a great ear for dialogue; we all know people who talk like these characters. While the movie is very funny, the characters are awkward as well, and crack jokes that fall flat, so the movie avoids the problem of having every character speak as though he had a team of Hollywood sitcom writers working on the dialogue.
So yes, this is a poker movie. And an Industry movie. And an LA movie. Any one of which would make it worth watching. But it's also more than any or all of these, individually or together. See it.
The young, entertainment-industry-wannabes in LA are by and large savaged; the movie works because it isn't only a send-up of self-absorbed Angelenos (though it is that). First, it is pitch-perfect in its treatment of these Beautiful People (at least to themselves they are): the mix of self-importance and self-loathing is dead-on, and the characters' foibles and frustrations (interpersonal, creative, familial, sexual, substance-related and more) will be familiar to most of us, without being trite.
Second, it is clear that Loheed feels for these characters, so that when he does savage them, it is lovingly rendered. This tenderness & care for the characters is what prevents the movie from being merely an exercise.
But even if it were just an exercise, it is a success on that score as well: Loheed has a great ear for dialogue; we all know people who talk like these characters. While the movie is very funny, the characters are awkward as well, and crack jokes that fall flat, so the movie avoids the problem of having every character speak as though he had a team of Hollywood sitcom writers working on the dialogue.
So yes, this is a poker movie. And an Industry movie. And an LA movie. Any one of which would make it worth watching. But it's also more than any or all of these, individually or together. See it.
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