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Chelsea Walls (2002)
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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.
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins
Genre: Dramas
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
Reviews for Chelsea Walls
As you may know, this film is directed by Ethan Hawke. Nicely shot, well acted, fine direction, well-organized (for what it is), but short on both impact and message.
The film apparently takes place in a fantasy world where people in hotel hallways recite poetry in voice-over instead of speaking to each other.
This is a very ambitious project for a fairly inexperienced filmmaker, but good actors, good poetry and good music help sustain it.
A free-for-all of half-baked thoughts, clumsily used visual tricks and self-indulgent actor moments.
It's a beautifully accomplished lyrical meditation on a bunch of despondent and vulnerable characters living in the renown Chelsea Hotel ...
'Linklater fans, or pretentious types who want to appear avant-garde will suck up to this project...'
Pretension, in its own way, is a form of bravery. For this reason and this reason only -- the power of its own steadfast, hoity-toity convictions -- Chelsea Walls deserves a medal.
It is dead on the inside, never quite achieving the movements and emotional solidity the material demands.
Hawke's actors are a talented troupe, and even when things get self-indulgent and fuzzy-headed (and boy, do they!), interesting stuff is going on.
Movies like this do not grab you by the throat. You have to be receptive.
Hawke’s film, a boring, pretentious waste of nearly two hours, doesn’t tell you anything except that the Chelsea Hotel today is populated by whiny, pathetic, starving and untalented artistes.
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