Doomed love is a stupid concept that only exists to give movies and television shows something to be about. In real life, if people really want to snuggle and have sex with each other, they just do—even if one of the people is married or dead or sleepy or fiercely career-driven. They do it anyway. Trust me. I know a lot of people, and not a single one of them has ever said, “I WANT to be with you, but I just CAN’T!” and meant it.

All of which happens constantly in Hollywood Dreams, which is confusing because it’s a movie about people who star in movies, in which things happen that only happen in movies. And self-awareness and self-parody don’t mix.

Screechy, neurotic Margie (Tanna Frederick, somehow unbearable and irresistible), fresh off the Iowa corn wagon, wants to be an actress so she’ll never be lonely (“I have an audience with hundreds of people watching me at a time—I am never alone!”). Ever on the verge of complete emotional collapse, Margie hyperventilates at auditions, faints for attention, and chews-‘n’-spits her way through entire boxes of Mallomars.

Through the world’s most phenomenal luck (i.e. yeah fucking right), she winds up crashing in the guesthouse of two kindly old gay super-producers, and falls in love with one gay up-and-comer named Robin (the cow-eyed Justin Kirk).

What I like about Hollywood Dreams is Margie’s totally unselfconscious gender confusion: when she says, “Why can’t men be, like, men-girls?” and “Sometimes I think I need a girl with a penis or something,” it’s sincere. (And not in that OMG-then-we-could-go-shoe-shopping-together way.) What I don’t like about Hollywood Dreams is everything else: just another dumb doomed love.

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS DIR. HENRY JAGLOM | RATED R | AT SELECT THEATERS IN LA AND OC

Tags: Film, hollywood dreams