Movie Review: "The Canyons" Makes Cable Porn Look Like Masterpiece Theater

Lindsay Lohan

It started as some sick joke. The plan was to find an excuse to watch director Paul Schrader's latest film the Canyons and have a good time. The trailer was awful and if it wasn't for actress Lindsay Lohan, the straight to VOD would have been unceremonious on par with the recently released Passion. Instead, we get an erotic film that combines the writing masterminds behind great films like Taxi Driver (Schrader) and American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis). It almost feels like there's too many egos for one film, though translating the personality to the screen would have helped immensely.

The film has had a long, tumultuous history, largely thanks to Schrader's giant ego and Lohan's notorious problems. In many ways, this film and its Kickstarter origins trumps the recent Spike Lee debacle in terms of overall ridiculousness. It almost feels like it is done at a professional level, with every one of the talents involved in some way sabotaging their market by just being a little bit unlikable. When Schrader shot down Steven Soderbergh for an additional edit, that was sign enough that things weren't looking too good. Of course, casting a porn star named James Deen in his cinematic debut didn't help matters more.

The film is probably one of the most tragically meta commentaries on cinema and notably Lohan's career. It opens and closes with footage of rundown theaters that haven't been inhabited for years. It is gross and unappealing, yet it says a lot about the film that follows. When Lohan claims halfway through the film to wonder when was the last time that her friend (Tenille Houston) she saw a movie she cared about. Speaking as the film follows Tara (Lohan) and Christian (Deen), who work in movies, it seems almost like a direct insult. 

Even for a film that is fine with nudity and talking about sex frankly, there is very little to argue that Lohan's quote is something the audience should have considered before walking in. The movie never feels like more than an incompetent, vapid vision of Los Angeles with nothing too exciting to say. The espionage and romance that drives majority of the story doesn't work largely because the cast is too stiff. Whenever they talk, there is this sense that something is grander than it is, and it doesn't allow room to ever invest in characters. Even the music from Brendan Canning feels like a synthesized knock-off of the score for Drive. The texture is too hollow for anything really to stick.

It probably has a little to do with the fact that the film is dealing with subject matter that is hard to do in mainstream cinema. The depictions of sex and acceptance of all sexuality is probably as progressive as this story gets. Even then, the film doesn't feel confident in allowing the audience to accept that these are real people. As proven in one scene, the repetitive use of a male referencing his significant other as "my boyfriend" several times only suggests that there's other things that the writer doesn't want us to forget. It may be very open, but it needs to move beyond just feeling like that makes for good entertainment.

Things almost feel depressingly bad because at 100 minutes, things don't go anywhere until a creepy, climactic finale that is supposed to be a twist, but doesn't feel earned. While Deen is acceptable as a lead actor, his consistent brooding and paranoia doesn't make for compelling narration. Even when he is seeing a shrink (Gus Van Sant), there isn't enough to this character to justify things building up so slowly. Even a 20 minute edit would have vastly made his character come across as more logical. As it stands, he feels like the tranquilized sibling of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman.

There isn't much to the Canyons beyond some eroticism. For those that ever cared to see Lohan or Deen naked and having sex, that is the extent to this film's legacy. Still, there is a sense that despite being from two distinct iconic voices, that there isn't any passion here. Lohan does the best with what she is given, though her overacting passes as tolerable next to Deen's stiff, menacing approach to the medium. However, the Canyons fails to make chemistry spark between what's on screen and the audience. In a sense, you'd get a better deal if you skipped this movie and watched Cinemax around midnight. At least there the story doesn't feel pretentious.

Left to right: James Deen and Lohan

The question still stands: when was the last time that you saw a good movie? While it is true that this past July has been a treasure trove of loathing, it is a question you can ask even about Lohan, whose past five years haven't had the brightest track record. Even to Schrader or Ellis, what was their last good movie? The attempt to be edgy through eroticism just doesn't cut it. We have seen it done to far more successful rates this year with Spring Breakers. Many would complain that it is possibly even more professionally vapid than the Canyons, but it made sinful culture exciting and portrayed it for what it was. The Canyons attempted to make it something far grander, and failed miserably.

Of course, for all of the film's flaws, it is mostly Ellis' boring, boring script. The dialogue doesn't have enough energy to muster the slow pacing of love triangles gone wrong. Even the fact that this feels like a familiar rehash of Schrader and Ellis' past, it doesn't quite give a good reason for needing to exist. It is too long and doesn't have a single character trait worth remembering. For a film filled with sex, you'd figure it would at least have a guilty pleasure vibe. It doesn't. It is just more reason that the abandoned theaters portrayed at the beginning and end of this film are almost symbols of this film and its cast and crew's future: the abyss.