Were Dylan Thomas alive to witness first-time director Ethan Hawke's strained Chelsea Walls, he might have been tempted to change his landmark poem to, 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Theatre.'
Chelsea Walls (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:46
Fresh:12
Rotten:34
Average Rating:4.1/10
Consensus: The meandering Chelsea Walls is more pretentious than poetic.
Theatrical Release:Apr 19, 2002 Limited
Synopsis: The Chelsea Hotel echoes with loneliness, residents moving in and out, dreaming behind closed doors and searching for someone -- or something -- that got away. The Chelsea Hotel used to be grand,... The Chelsea Hotel echoes with loneliness, residents moving in and out, dreaming behind closed doors and searching for someone -- or something -- that got away. The Chelsea Hotel used to be grand, the place to live for New York City artists. Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix…they all passed through the hotel’s halls. Now, the iron façade has become rusty and the artists in residence are tarnished, too. Still, new dreamers come every day, hoping to be inspired by the ghosts of the past. Grace (Uma Thurman) and Audrey (Rosaria Dawson) are young poets, who constantly struggle with issues of art and love. Never learning from experience, they always seem to let the wrong men into their hearts. Grace should love Frank (Vincent D’Onofrio), an artist who respects and understands her. But she still responds to the siren call of the lover who went to Hollywood. Similarly, Audrey lets impenetrable Val (Mark Webber) back into her life, knowing he will go off with Crutches (Kevin Corrigan) to do something that could take him away from her forever. Down the hall, Bud (Kris Kristofferson) is a writer who faces more endings than beginnings. His pretends that his wife, Greta, (Tuesday Weld) and his mistress, Mary, (Natasha Richardson) are his muses. But his eight-hundred page book is really fueled by an endless supply of alcohol. A lion who is losing his roar, Bud is out of time. For every worn out writer, there are two new musicians who come to town. Ross (Steve Zahn) and Terry (Robert Sean Leonard) have just driven in from Minnesota, eager to experience the sights and sounds of the Chelsea Hotel. These new hotel residents, young and full of expectations, mingle with the old hotel ghosts, ultimately becoming interchangeable. They form a community, linked by their dreams, their isolation, and their pain. The Chelsea Hotel never really leaves the people who live there, nor do they ever really leave it. -- © 2002 Lions Gate Films [More]
Starring: Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D'Onofrio
Starring: Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Sean Leonard, Natasha Richardson, Mark Webber, Tuesday Weld, Steve Zahn, Kevin Corrigan, Frank Whaley, Guillermo Diaz, Paz de la Huerta
Director: Ethan Hawke
Director: Ethan Hawke
Screenwriter: Nicole Burdette
Producer: Gary Winick, Alexis Alexanian, Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for Chelsea Walls
A dreary, incoherent, self-indulgent mess of a movie in which a bunch of pompous windbags drone on inanely for two hours...a cacophony of pretentious, meaningless prattle.
The movie is essentially a series of fleetingly interesting actors' moments.
It is a film in which body language and unspoken human intercourse play a much more important role than dialogue.
Reeks with phony posturing and lot of talking without really saying anything.
Hampered -- no, paralyzed -- by a self-indulgent script ... that aims for poetry and ends up sounding like satire.
The cinematic equivalent of patronizing a bar favored by pretentious, untalented artistes who enjoy moaning about their cruel fate.
I'm not suggesting that you actually see it, unless you're the kind of person who has seen every Wim Wenders film of the '70s.
As is most commonly case with projects such noble and lofty ambitions, the film is less poetic than simply pretentious.
Chelsea Walls is a case of too many chefs fussing over too weak a recipe.
There is a certain sense of experimentation and improvisation to this film that may not always work, but it is nevertheless compelling.
Like the Chelsea's denizens ... Burdette's collage-form scenario tends to over-romanticize the spiritual desolation of the struggling artiste.
The film at times transcends reality and becomes something special. It approaches art.
This insufferable movie is meant to make you think about existential suffering. Instead, it'll only put you to sleep.
Like a bad improvisation exercise, the superficially written characters ramble on tediously about their lives, loves and the art they're struggling to create.
Hawke's lofty goal of painting the personalities of the poetry-spewing inhabitants gives ways to wannabe Beatnik meandering.
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