Pierre Peders (Steve Buscemi) is an ambitious political journalist assigned by his editor to interview the it girl Katya (Miller). He's not remotely happy about this assignment, so refuses to do research about her or to watch her movies. They meet in a restaurant where everything gets quickly ugly, but after a brief incident in the street they carry on the interview in Katya's vast loft flat across the road. The conversation is a series of power-shifting statements and revelations that continually undermine appearances. Although neither of them is terribly trustworthy.

There's a bracing relevance to this subject matter in the era of Paris-Lindsay-Britney headline-hogging. Katya is more known for her flings and breast-size changes than for her work, and this self-parody gives Miller her first believably rounded character, a sardonic woman who's all surfaces and shadows, but who hides her true self far beneath the myth. She's challenging, funny and convincingly raw in her clear-eyed confessions, many of which are plainly fabricated. But which ones?

Against her, Buscemi gives an offhanded performance that shifts from apathetic arrogance to genuine curiosity to feigned astonishment. The film centres on their somewhat sinister dance in her loft (at one point they actually start dancing). It's the kind of prickly, smart dialog that continuously puts one character on the back-foot, letting the other think they have the upper hand until the tables are turned, emotions begin to flow and true confessions start to emerge.

It's well filmed, with a terrific sense of space that's both claustrophobic and expansive at the same time. It also centres on the actors' faces, which is the only thing that distinguishes this from a play. Although frankly, it would work better on stage, where the transparent falseness of both professions--actor and media hack--could be more provocatively manipulated. On film, we simply never believe anything they say. No matter how funny or moving the dialog is, it still feels oddly dull and predictable.

themes, language, drugs

3.Aug.07