During my first night in Venice I had chance to see “The Canyons” a non-competitive film directed by Paul Schrader. Director and main actors where present, except for Lindsay Lohan, who apparently was, as usual, into rehab.
The film tells a murky web of unhealthy relationships based on sex and lies and the corrupt, ruthless and decadent film industry’s system, also in relation to the progressive abandonment of the cinemas in favor of a home vision and the passage from the film to the digital age.
I believe that the strength of the film is the main character, Tara, played by Lindsay Lohan, which brings on set, through her troubled story and personality, a honest and real performance. So real that I immediately thought that the clothes worn by the actress had not been chosen by the costume designer, but by herself. Intuition confirmed by reading an article where there was talk that Lindsay also decided to wear a bright red swimsuit in order to direct the focal point of a scene on herself.
She appears morally and physically decadent but I personally like a lot the melancholic result of the mix between surgery, drugs abuse and depression.
Too bad the film fails to really dare, it remains a little too prudish and flat, but perhaps really coincides with the reality that describes.
