The Bret Easton Ellis trope of masturbatory nihilism is obvious in the first few moments of The Canyons upon Ryan’s rhetorical interrogative, “does anyone really know anyone?” The seemingly short distance between the two couples at the restaurant table is cold desert at midnight. Two of them, Ryan and Gina, both of who are looking for careers in Hollywood, are out of place in the shadow of the trust-funded Christian (James Deen) and his girlfriend Tara (Lindsay Lohan). The former want to be in the network of the latter, so they chat, mundanely. The latter are disinterested and insular, so they speak perfunctorily and spend more gazing into the touchscreens of their cellphones than in the eyes of their dinner guests.
This too is nothing new to an Ellis work. Like they were in Less than Zero, “people are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.” (Also, see Rules of Attraction and Glamorama for examples.)
There is little to distinguish The Canyons from its writer’s previous endeavors, save the advent of technology. Ironically for an Ellis work, the ubiquitous use of social media and our choice to be constantly tethered to our phones creates a sprawling, almost never-ending, network of connections to other people. But, as Ellis will, he casts this in a negative light, positing that these connections or nothing more than devious arteries through which to draw someone else’s blood and leave a wake of dessicated corpses that separate the haves and the have-nots. (See The Informers for a group of short stories just like this.)
All in all, I don’t disagree with Ellis’ general look at technology, but the inclusion of the deviation between private and public feels forced, and, unfortunately, the easy way out. What I mean to suggest here is that in 2012 – when the film is set – I’m not sure that we’re unaware of the perils of social media. While Christian’s actions are devious, he is no different than the thousands of identity thieves that we read about, are warned about, or may have experienced in the last few years when this crime has been at its apex. While I slightly mock the common denominators of Ellis’ books above, they were ahead of their time.
They came before the dawn of the country’s acknowledging the perils of isolation and ennui.
The Canyons, in its ostensible look at technology, does not. And this is unfortunate because there are profound moments within the screenplay, but they are often suffocated. For example, many of the scene breaks feature rundown buildings and theaters. The former is a signal of predatory commerce. A stream of income funnels from Christian’s never-seen-on-screen father through his trust fund and into his pockets. This money grants Christian access to the film industry and the glamor that this provides. However, there is a disconnect here inasmuch as the vacant theaters allude to a dying industry propped up by images, not films. In tandem with these brief scenes, we learn Christian’s idee fixe: filming he and Tara having sex with other men, women, and couples.
On the one hand, these scenes – and primarily the use of the camera phone to film these trysts – posit that film is dying because it is too easily accessible. Everyone has a camera; therefore everyone can be a filmmaker. Given the rash of tentpole films and sequels over the past ten years, I’m not sure how inaccurate this is. If nothing else, Christian, in his rich existence and general dismissal of quality, represents the downfall of quality cinema.
Unfortunately, this exploration is lost amidst the unnecessary need to establish Christian as a chauvinist sociopath, Tara as a frightened weakling, and Ryan as the lovelorn loser. Each character is stock, and each character is difficult to see as real, something that correlates to Christian’s final act of aggression, one that we are forced to question, and our only answers are 1) he can because he’s wealthy or 2) he does because he’s insane. I suppose both are viable, but they are simple and binary, which categorizes The Canyons as overall shallow and desperate to shock.
The story aside, The Canyons might garner the most acclaim because of Paul Schrader’s ability to make a very low-budget film (about $250,000) look really good. He creates a natural grittiness without relegating the film to a collegiate project. Despite the trials involved in casting Lohan – see the January 10, 2013 New York Times article “Here is What Happens when you Cast Lindsay Lohan in your Movie” – Schrader prevails and brings out the actress that we saw glimpses of years ago in Mean Girls. This might also be a testament to Lohan’s buried ability, but don’t hold me to that.
He knows when to shoot and he knows what to shoot. He seems to know when to let the actors fill the screen and when to tell a story through setting. Honestly, I’m ambivalent to his, Zach Braff’s, and Spike Lee’s respective views on raising money for a movie through Kickstarter. On the one hand, this fundraising might be another example of the wealthy making money by using other people’s money. Maybe. On the other, it might be a way, as the director, to prevent yourself from being tied to an uber-influential producer looking to generate a tentpole film and six sequels to perpetuate merchandising. Maybe.
Regardless, The Canyons is not a film that is shot well despite its budget. It is a well-shot film. And, it had a relatively low budget.
