Time Code

A bold experiment from Mike Figgis, at once fun and infuriating. The film’s undercut by an overblown satirical plot and grotesquely thin characters that suggest Robert Altman at his worst; you can barely laugh without feeling either glib or stupid. In 93 minutes of real time, four digital cameras simultaneously shoot the trajectories of various characters who have some connection to auditions for a stupid-sounding movie on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard and a pitch being made for another movie (which approximates this one); we view the results of all four cameras at once while hearing enough to follow the main strands of the plot, which mainly have to do with who’s sleeping with whom. The action, which features a series of earthquake aftershocks, is synchronized with stopwatches, but the dialogue is improvised. The cast includes, among many others, Figgis regular Saffron Burrows, Holly Hunter (mainly wasted), Richard Edson, Salma Hayek, Kyle MacLachlan, Laurie Metcalf, Mia Maestro, Julian Sands, Stellan Skarsgard, and Jeanne Tripplehorn. (JR) Read more