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Review

The new film by Denys Arcand (Love and Human Remains) takes us to charted territory, celebrity, but shines a new light on this all-important issue in the MTV/PC era. The story is told entirely through the lens of VH1 reporters, commercials, a paparazzi documentarian and news reports. Everything told in the film has a slant or an angle. We never learn who our characters actually are, only what we see through the eyes of manipulative news reporters. Tina Menzhal (Pare) is a woman's hockey player who is "discovered" by a sports photographer who shows her image to a modeling agency. Tina's presence impresses the agency and she is hired to do some minor modeling work. Tina goes to Paris, fails, and returns home disgusted. Her journey takes her back to New York and she achieves success and "stardom". Along the way she falls for a sexy photographer and a sad middle aged restaurateur, Barry Levine (Aykroyd). Dan Akroyd turns in an excellent performance, breaking the mold in much the way his Saturday Night Live compatriot, Bill Murray, did two years ago in the brilliant Rushmore. Lots of gay and lesbian characters everywhere in the script keep it interesting.