Beyond the Multiplex

"Broken English": For those who thought the "Sex and the City" women were undermedicated
So Zoe Cassavetes is the daughter of independent-film pioneer John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, a fact that will be mentioned by every journalist who ever writes about her from now till the day she dies (when it will be in her obituary). Just thought I'd get that out of the way. Holding her feature-film debut, "Broken English," up against her dad's work is of course fundamentally unfair. But it's such a strange combination of chick-flick cliché and raw, naked, uncontrolled emotion that one needs to find some standard of comparison.

Then there's the equally unwarranted but irresistible question of how much Nora, the main character memorably played by Parker Posey, is based on Cassavetes herself -- and whether or not Cassavetes is aware how unflattering a portrait it is. From the moment we meet her, Nora seems to be one of those flibbertigibbet middle-class women in the 28-to-32 age bracket who's having an almost inexplicable breakdown. Instead of embracing her fleeting youth by dating a zillion guys, traveling the world or studying Zen or parasailing or Kurdish or pastry, she's working a well-paid but depressing Manhattan hotel job and marinating in booze, pills and crappy self-esteem.

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic; anguish is always real to the sufferer, regardless of his or her objective circumstances. But Nora is a pit of boundless unhappiness, well beyond the normal confines of the moody romantic heroine. Over lunch with her hellish, meddlesome mom (played by Rowlands, naturally enough) she begins weeping and moaning aloud: No man will love her, she's a wretched mess, etc. To the extent that Cassavetes is resisting formula, I admire her, but she may have been too hypnotized by the uncanny, repulsive specter Posey has conjured up. For this kind of movie to work, we need to see the main character's essential lovableness, not to be thinking: Jesus, honey, you're right, you're a freak. No self-respecting guy would marry you if the only other women alive were Ann Coulter and Joan Rivers.

Nora's supposed best friend, Audrey (Drea de Matteo of "Sopranos" fame), is a perennially scowling, yuppie-nightmare wife who seems devoted to projecting her own unhappiness onto Nora. Does Cassavetes realize how little these two women like each other, and how much of their relationship is a vampiric exchange of hostility? Maybe she does; she has certainly made de Matteo look haggard and worn despite her noteworthy curves, something of an accomplishment in itself.

Justin Theroux injects some actual enjoyment into the proceedings as an asshole TV actor with a Mohawk (he's the star of some show called "The Hit Man") whom Nora foolishly sleeps with -- you can't say it's against her better judgment because she doesn't have any. Hemmed in by her job, her mom, her married friends and her self-loathing, Nora barely notices Julien (French heartthrob Melvil Poupaud), the Gallic playboy in a silly hat who hits on her at a party. Of course he turns out to be the guy who's throwing a metaphorical rope into her well of despair, but the question remains: Dear God, why?

OK, the Sydney Greenstreet chapeau isn't working, but Julien is a slim Parisian charmer with large, soulful eyes and a Marlboro tucked behind his ear. The overeducated young women of New York are pretty much at his disposal. What draws him to this ambulatory panic attack? Cassavetes doesn't come close to answering this question, and doesn't seem aware that it is a question. Posey has been justly acclaimed for her work in this movie, but the character she creates is a horror show. If you take Carrie Bradshaw from "Sex and the City," but subtract the wardrobe, the capacity for self-reflection and about half the gawky sex appeal, and then add a substance-abuse problem and an incipient personality disorder, you've got Nora.

"Broken English" shifts from awkward, agonizing realism to pure fantasy about two-thirds of the way through, which is quite a relief. Once you accept that Julien actually likes Nora and that for no particular reason they lose contact and she has to go to Paris, grumpy Audrey in tow, to find him, we've entered the cloud-cuckoo-land of romantic happy endings. Removed from her milieu and given the mission of finding herself, Nora lightens up and becomes something like a tolerable human being for the first time.

Despite its schizophrenic nature and often disagreeable characteristics, "Broken English" has flashes of something. You might say it has an integrity of purpose, if not of execution. Maybe it will serve to exorcise Zoe Cassavetes' demons, and she can decide whether either of its narrative modes, anguished John Cassavetes-style naturalism or light comedy, is actually hers.

"Broken English" opens June 22 in New York and Los Angeles; July 6 in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis and Washington; July 13 in Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Santa Cruz, Calif., and Austin, Texas; July 18 in Lake Worth, Fla.; July 20 in Charlotte, N.C., Santa Fe, N.M., and Wilmington, Del.; July 25 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; July 27 in Little Rock, Ark.; and Aug. 1 in Portland, Maine, with more cities to follow.

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