The Canyons

I watched The Canyons not because I felt that anyone else was interested in seeing it or what my thoughts on it were.  I watched it because I am a huge fan of Bret Easton Ellis.  His books are incredible (some are admittedly far superior to others).  The films based on those books are, at worst, enjoyable.  So, when he decided to take a stab at writing an original screenplay, I was instantly sold.  Couple his screenplay with the direction of Paul Schrader and I figured it would be at least be an interesting failure.  I was right.

 

The Canyons really isn't a bad movie.  It just fails to achieve its ambition.  And that may be the best way to describe the movie: ambitious.

 

Like all of Ellis' work, The Canyons is about young, jaded, wealthy people.  They engage a hedonistic lifestyle.  Bad things happen.  Ambiguous ending.

 

What sets Ellis' stories apart from each other is the way he captures these same types of people but in different places and times.  The wealthy, jaded youth of 1980s New York is different from that of Los Angeles.  But The Canyons doesn't seem to capture the wealthy, jaded youth of 21st century Los Angeles.  And if he actually has, then they are dull.  For all the drugs and orgies, they are just bland.

 

I think Bret Easton Ellis' stories work well on film because they are adapted by someone else.  A novel allows him to flesh out thoughts and motivations that must be excised in order to keep a film relatively short.  Screenwriters are usually good at this.  They find moments (or create them) that sum up those ideas and leave the rest to the actors.  But Ellis' screenplay is packed with people speaking their thoughts aloud to each other.  "Show,  Don't tell" is an old screenwriting lesson and it seems as if Ellis never learned it.  Ellis should have written this as a story.  Even a short story would work.  Then director Paul Schrader should've written the screenplay.  The man wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull!

 

As far as Lindsay Lohan goes, she's not very good.  Her many nude scenes will probably attract enough curious viewers, but her performance is lacking.  It's actually James Deen who turns in a fairly solid performance.  His involvement has also attracted a bit of buzz.  He's a porn star, yet he's a better actor than the professional actress.  It should be said to any horny teenage boys who are prepared to watch (or fast forward through) this movie to see Lohan naked, Deen has just as much (and maybe more) full frontal screen time.

 

All in all, The Canyons feels like a missed opportunity.  It's overwritten and thus feels overlong.  Despite it's salacious subject matter, it's not very exciting.  Paul Schrader manages to squeeze some really nice looking moments out of his low budget cast and equipment, but nothing great enough to really warrant renting this movie.

 

4 out of 10