Ellie Parker (2005)

Shot on digital video over a period of five years, ELLIE PARKER takes an unfiltered look at the Hollywood people rarely see. An insider's story in many ways, the film should appeal to actors and film-industry people for the way it pokes fun at the entertainment profession. Naomi Watts (MULLHOLLAND DRIVE, 21 GRAMS) throws herself fully into the role of Ellie Parker, an eager young Australian actress trying to break into Hollywood. Often transparent and rarely likeable, Ellie is an all too-realistic example of many striving actors. Changing clothes, applying makeup, and experimenting with various dialects in her ca...
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r while on the way from one audition to the next, Ellie eagerly transforms herself at a moment's notice for the chance of getting a role. When Ellie finds out that her loser boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino) is cheating on her, she seeks solace in her best friend and fellow actress, Sam (Rebecca Rigg), and an equally hapless new love interest, Chris (Scott Coffey). Through chaotic and unrewarding auditions, hilarious acting exercises, therapy sessions, and messy one-night-stands, Ellie makes misguided but funny attempts to find herself in as dramatic a way as possible. While viewers might like to think of this perversely self-conscious, self-consumed, and shallow character as an anomaly, the film suggests that people like her are, unfortunately, a dime a dozen in Los Angeles. While meant to be funny throughout, ELLIE PARKER is also sad in that Ellie's real life feels even less genuine than her acting. First conceived as a 16-minute short, the film grew into a feature-length project with Watts as producer, and actor Scott Coffey as director. The two worked together on MULLHOLLAND DRIVE, and let that film's main character (also a striving actress)--along with Watts's own experiences--inform their story.
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Naomi Watts produces and stars in Ellie Parker, a semi-autobiographical story of an Australian actress struggling to make it in Hollywood. Ellie is young enough to still schlep to auditions back and forth across L.A., changing wardrobes and slapping on makeup en route, but just old enough that the future feels "more like a threat than a promise." She lives with her vacant musician boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino), who leaves her just about as dissatisfied as any other part of her life, and has a loose definition of the word "fidelity." Helping make sense of their surreal and humiliating Hollywood existence is her best...
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friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress trying her hand at design, who attends acting classes with Ellie to stay sharp. When Ellie gets into a fender bender with a guy who claims he's a cinematographer (Scott Coffey), her perspective on her work and the dating world starts to change. Chevy Chase also makes an appearance in this series of Hollywood vignettes, playing Ellie's agent. Watts, Coffey, and Pellegrino all worked together on David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, where Watts had her breakout performance, and Ellie Parker grew out of the friendship forged between Watts and director/screenwriter Coffey. It was shot on digital video over the course of five years, having begun its life as a series of shorts featuring Watts' character.
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Deze film gaat over de Australische actrice Ellie Parker die het probeert te maken in Hollywood. Tijdens haar tocht ontmoet ze allerlei mensen van verschillend pluimage en we zien haar dagelijkse leven tijdens en tussen de audities door.

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