If you go to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood and stroll around the kitchen section where all those metal refrigerators and icers and things are, you'll get a feel for "Claire Dolan", a frosty, modern work of filmic blue.
A character portrait of a modern-day call girl, Cannes film festival competition entry "Claire Dolan", scorched in arctic blues and chilly framings, is a mildly interesting but ultimately detached divertissement that will likely swing no more than a one-night stand on the art house circuit.
Katrin Cartlidge stars as Claire, a fashionable woman who has somehow run up a huge debt to her pimp (Colm Meaney). We're never told how this came to be -- she doesn't seem to have a drug habit, and she's methodical to such a degree we can't imagine her not balancing her checkbook to the penny.
In her late 30s, Claire's feeling the pressure from some sort of psychological clock and has decided to quit the trade and have a child. With those goals in mind, she increases her caseload, as it were, doing johns with the fierce determination of a chiropractor who schedules overlapping appointments. Not surprisingly, the erotic portion of this film is negligible -- the sex is about as stirring as the demonstration of a newfangled ice maker -- and writer-director Lodge Kerrigan never gets far beneath Claire's surface. As such, "Claire Dolan" is not much more than a tease.
As the titular character, Cartlidge's piercing eyes and steely demeanor never deviate from a one-note performance. As far as we get to know Claire, all we can determine is that she's terminally snippy and, alas, very shallow.
The only flesh-and-blood performance in the film is Vincent D'Onofrio's sharp turn as a frustrated cabbie who tries to connect with Claire. Meaney is, well, a solid meanie as Claire's pimp, but the role is sorely underwritten and we know nothing about him other than he's manipulative and cruel.
Unfortunately, Kerrigan's direction is befitting more an appliance commercial than a human drama. While he evinces a luminously chilly tone -- thanks to the smart and sterile scopings of cinematographer Teodoro Maniaci and the edgy, modernistic production design of Sharon Lomofsky -- "Claire" is merely one frigid film.
CLAIRE DOLAN
MK2 Prods./Serene Films
Screenwriter-director: Lodge Kerrigan
Director of photography: Teodoro Maniaci
Production designer: Sharon Lomofsky
Music: Simon Fisher Turner
Editor: Kristina Boden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Claire Dolan: Katrin Cartlidge
Elton Garrett: Vincent D'Onofrio
Roland Cain: Colm Meaney
Cain's friend: John Doman
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
A character portrait of a modern-day call girl, Cannes film festival competition entry "Claire Dolan", scorched in arctic blues and chilly framings, is a mildly interesting but ultimately detached divertissement that will likely swing no more than a one-night stand on the art house circuit.
Katrin Cartlidge stars as Claire, a fashionable woman who has somehow run up a huge debt to her pimp (Colm Meaney). We're never told how this came to be -- she doesn't seem to have a drug habit, and she's methodical to such a degree we can't imagine her not balancing her checkbook to the penny.
In her late 30s, Claire's feeling the pressure from some sort of psychological clock and has decided to quit the trade and have a child. With those goals in mind, she increases her caseload, as it were, doing johns with the fierce determination of a chiropractor who schedules overlapping appointments. Not surprisingly, the erotic portion of this film is negligible -- the sex is about as stirring as the demonstration of a newfangled ice maker -- and writer-director Lodge Kerrigan never gets far beneath Claire's surface. As such, "Claire Dolan" is not much more than a tease.
As the titular character, Cartlidge's piercing eyes and steely demeanor never deviate from a one-note performance. As far as we get to know Claire, all we can determine is that she's terminally snippy and, alas, very shallow.
The only flesh-and-blood performance in the film is Vincent D'Onofrio's sharp turn as a frustrated cabbie who tries to connect with Claire. Meaney is, well, a solid meanie as Claire's pimp, but the role is sorely underwritten and we know nothing about him other than he's manipulative and cruel.
Unfortunately, Kerrigan's direction is befitting more an appliance commercial than a human drama. While he evinces a luminously chilly tone -- thanks to the smart and sterile scopings of cinematographer Teodoro Maniaci and the edgy, modernistic production design of Sharon Lomofsky -- "Claire" is merely one frigid film.
CLAIRE DOLAN
MK2 Prods./Serene Films
Screenwriter-director: Lodge Kerrigan
Director of photography: Teodoro Maniaci
Production designer: Sharon Lomofsky
Music: Simon Fisher Turner
Editor: Kristina Boden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Claire Dolan: Katrin Cartlidge
Elton Garrett: Vincent D'Onofrio
Roland Cain: Colm Meaney
Cain's friend: John Doman
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/29/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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