Laurel Canyon (R) (101 min.) - Frances McDormand, above, plays the flip side of her Almost Famous role as Jane Benton, another mother embarrassing her son against a backdrop of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. This time it's her world, a music producer living with a rock star half her age and partying all night, to the chagrin of her uptight son Sam (Christian Bale). McDormand's savvy, sexy performance is the saving grace of the movie.
Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's second film, like her first, High Art, hinges on conflict and attraction between artistically inspired hedonism and conservative upbringing. Jane and her lover Ian (Alesandro Nivola) are solidly in the corner of anything goes. Sam is settling into a psychology residency and needs a quiet place to live, but Ian, their band and hangers-on come with the offer to stay at Jane's fashionable home. His fiancee Alex (Kate Beckinsale) is the swing personality, prim at first and later improper.
While High Art was too esoteric for its own good, Laurel Canyon is too clockwork predictable and climactically wishy-washy for ours. Alex's character skims from Ivy League debutante to curious bisexual marijuana smoker in the studio almost too easily. The same goes for Sam's enticement by another psychologist named Sara (Natascha McElhone) who, in trite movie tradition, he almost meets before he actually does. Cholodenko doesn't take either Alex's or Sam's temptations - or in his case, the consequences - to the limits they deserve.
The result is a story that seems like a classier version of the padding between steamy scenes in a late-night cable TV movie. Cholodenko uses narrative shortcuts but writes dialogue that's provocative without being overwrought and funny in natural fashion for the circumstances. The cheery decadence of Jane's rock 'n' roll lifestyle, from midnight skinny-dipping and tofu steaks to Chateau Marmont champagne parties, is constantly authentic. It's no wonder that Alex is intrigued. Sam remains a party pooper only because Cholodenko needs him to be.
McDormand doesn't seem to notice that not much is happening around her. She never turns down the energy on her performance; she just shifts the voltage into another emotion. Jane is an earth mother as likely to flash her breasts for fun as she is to whip up a veggie shake that's good for the colon. She's also the unlikely, eventual conscience for everyone concerned. McDormand keeps Jane likable and slightly pathetic, yet firmly in control of her studio and her desires. She and Nick Nolte in The Good Thief have the early lead in performances of the year honors. Grade: B
