The Pretenders

2018, 1080hd

Johnny's comments:

Pretenders is a recent drama set in 1979, in which an aspiring filmmaker Terry (Jack Kilmer) meets an actress, Catherine (Jane Levy), with a striking resemblance to his favourite actress. Anna Karina. They meet at a cinema and he instantly falls for her, but blows it big-time when speaking with her.

He also meets a budding photographer, a man with a gift of attracting women, Phil (Shameik Moore), and they becomes friends. Turns out Catherine regularly goes to the cinema and a few weeks later Terry catches up with her and with Phil. They become friends with the promise that Terry wants to write and make a short film just for her. Over time, Catherine and Terry begin a relationship but she is also attracted to Phil which gets complicated when Terry finds them having sex.

In 1983, they are all still friends but Terry is now a film critic who has expanded his short film looking to make a feature film. He also hooks up with Catherine again but it's not as serious. Meanwhile, he meets actress Victoria (Juno Temple) and they sort of hit it off which gets more serious when she helps him get his screenplay made. They get engaged but Catherine makes her feelings clear to Terry and they get back together, which disappoints Phil who goes into a spiral of sex that leads him to be contract AIDS. Catherine then disappears and it becomes clear that Terry didn't really know her at all.

One of the numerous movies James Franco directs every year, this drama about love and film is one of his more accessible ones and isn't too bad although it has a fairly implausible ending which unravels most of what happens before it. The three leads are fine and their friendship/relationships are intriguing enough until it all goes off the rails. There's also a bunch of actors who turn up in "blink and you'll miss them" roles, like Dennis Quaid as Terry's aloof father, and a couple of actresses from Franco's TV show, The Deuce (Margarita Levieva and Olivia Luccardi).

Otherwise, not a bad little movie particularly if you are into movies that are about a love of movies.

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