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There once was a little film called Ellie Parker. A short film that debuted at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. It starred a then-unknown actress by the name of Naomi Watts. Since that time, of course, Ms. Watts has starred in the masterpiece of this decade so far, Mulholland Drive, as well as the hit horror flicks The Ring and The Ring Two, and the rather subversively filmed 21 Grams, the highly underrated We Don't Live Here Anymore, the highly overrated I Heart Huckabees - and in doing so has become one of the most talented and versatile actors working today. Also, in the meantime, Scott Coffey, who co-starred in Mulholland Drive with Watts (one of many similarities between these two films), has turned his short film into a feature length movie, and voila - here it is.
Co-starring Coffey himself, along with a rather baffled looking Chevy Chase, Ellie Parker also stars Mark Pellegrino - yet another co-star of Mulholland Drive and the late Jennifer Syme - to whom Mulholland Drive is dedicated. There is also a "very special thanks" to David Lynch in the final credits. With all these curiosities, Ellie Parker is destined to live its entire life crouched down in the darkness of the far superior Mulholland Drive. But this may end up working in its favour.
A much too flawed film to clench its claws into anything worthwhile, as long as it hides, it may stay the curiosity that it is, and not ever have to defend its merits in any way.
Far from great and rather amateurish in places, it is Naomi Watts who peels away the silly bullshit and gives a skin-rippingly surreal performance nearly equal to her showing in the much superior film, Mulholland Drive. Halfway between the perky can do attitude of Betty Elms and the morose forboding of Diane Selwyn, Watts' Ellie Parker - yet another struggling multi-personalitied actress in the sidestreets of Hollywood - is the one saving grace of this otherwise fleeting little over-shadowed film. Now let's see what she can do against King Kong. [11/14/05]
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