Expanding upon a quartet of shorts that writer-director Scott Coffey made with Naomi Watts, this is an engaging and mostly amusing insight into the stresses involved in securing a foothold on the lowest rung of the Hollywood ladder. Revisiting territory she explored in Mulholland Drive, Watts turns in a commendable display of quiet despair, as she clings to her self-esteem while shuttling between auditions for projects she knows are beneath her.
Encounters with Coffey’s wannabe cinematographer, a boorish musician and a rival hopeful are all squirmingly credible. But Watts is most effective in solo slots in the car she uses as a dressing-room, office and rehearsal studio. Shrewdly observed and admirably restrained in its depiction of a ludicrous world.