Acerbic, gripping look at life in Hollywood with more melodramatic plot than a Greek tragedy (which feels like it's main influence, actually) - there is incest, suicide, self-immolation, murder, threesomes, schizophrenia, visions of dead people, cancer, drowning, greed, lust, botox, massage and lots of therapy.
I can't say that I super enjoyed it - some of it was just plain unpleasant, and depressing with so much pain. There's plenty of story and I could never pick what was going to happen next. It's also superbly acted: Julianne Moore as an aging starlet (loved her lip work), newcomer Evan Bird as a brattish child star, chameleon Mia Wasikowska, and ever reliable Olivia Williams; John Cusack and Robert Pattison are also solid in smaller, if crucial parts. Actually everyone was good, down to the smallest parts.
The one thing I didn't quite believe story wise was Cusack being a famous self-help guru and Bird's father - that didn't feel super real to me (also would someone with Cusack's secret really chase fame? It wasn't necessary that he was famous).
Maybe I'm being too smarty pants here but the movie seemed to betray a Canadian bias - a distaste for lack of politeness (Bird and Moore suffer terribly for being rude) and guns (Bird again is shown to be a brat).
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