Clive

Clive, written by Jonathan Marc based on Baal by Bertolt Brecht, and directed and starring Ethan Hawke, is yet another tale of a male artist so charismatic and tortured that people line up to be fucked or fucked over by him. As is true of most stories of this sort, it is unpleasant, frustrating, annoying, and boring. It also depicts all women as weak idiots (some of the men at least get to be strong idiots). Clive sleeps with his producer's wife, seduces a friend's girlfriend out of her virginity, and says things like, "My insides are on the outside. My intestines are stuck to my chest and my veins are on my skin."

It may be that Clive is supposed to limn the dog-eat-dog mundanity of human society or reveal artistic self-destructiveness or something else equally meaningful, but it comes across as a lot of posturing and blah, blah, blah. Clive is reasonably well-directed and well-acted, but, really, who cares?

Mahira Kakkar, Stephanie Janssen, Ethan Hawke
Photo: Monique Carboni

(press ticket; 7th row center)