Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a famous Hollywood actor who parties a lot and is kind of an asshole. But then he has a chance to bond with his 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), and show that he has a good side.
Didn't we just cover this trope in my previous post?
Anyway, Sofia Coppola wrote and directed this film about being a Hollywood celebrity and, also, about being the daughter of a Hollywood celebrity. She places a fair number of scenes in an overseas hotel and includes both a celebrity-translation scene and a moody-female-at-mealtime scene, just like in her film Last in Translation. In other words, she isn't exactly stretching by exploring new territory here. Nonetheless, I think this movie has some merit, despite my indifference to the plight of Hollywood movie stars and an ending that seems overly calculated for a "cool" final image.
Coppola has a real flair for minimalist scenes that extend to just before the breaking point: long enough to properly establish the emptiness of Marco's life but stopping a moment before I want to jump onscreen (like Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr.) to make something happen. The movie's main drawback is that even though Dorff is well cast as Marco, the character isn't sufficiently engaging for me to care if his pampered life is empty. However, I did learn a valuable lesson from this film. Not only do Hollywood celebrities live better lives than the characters in Biutiful, but I live a better life by watching films like this instead of Biutiful.