Directed by Andrew Litvack US, 2003, 35mm, 106 min. South Florida Premiere

A hot young phone sex addict and his narcissistic opera diva mom. A dangerously agitated hustler and a half-dozen dangerously agitated hustlers who look just like him. A tittering neurotic who thinks she's Vanessa Redgrave and Vanessa Redgrave herself. Pot brownies, puke jokes, a gay dad, a flying lesbian, Jerry Hall, a dead body and a fetish for Brian DePalma movies! This is a Merchant Ivory production?! The makers of Howard's End ?! Strange, but true. Writer/director Andrew Litvack thankfully steers clear of all things precious and elegant, delivering instead a raucous mystery farce with a deliciously camp sensibility. Anchoring the non-stop mayhem is intoxicating film legend Dianne Wiest as Elisabeth Beaumont, an American opera star visiting Paris to perform "Turandot" and dabble in some belated mothering of her 23 year-old son Thomas (sinewy heartthrob Stanislaus Merhar). Thomas doesn't need mothering; he needs some good hot manhandling. And, in the best DePalma tradition, the quest for sex leads to voyeurism and voyeurism, leads to murder. From there, it's just a short path to therapy. Unfortunately, the psychiatrist that Thomas visits is a little on the dead side herself, and a nutty patient has taken her place. The oddball friendship that ensues is one of the sweetest surprises in this sly not-to-be-missed caper. But a blisteringly funny montage of Vanessa Redgrave's greatest cinematic moments, including Isadora and the Fatal Scarf, is worth the price of admission alone.
In French and English with English subtitles.

Total running time: 106 min.
$12 non-members / $10 members

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