Slipstream 1 star
Anthony Hopkins, Stella Arroyave, Lisa Pepper, Fionnula Flanagan, John Turturro
Directed by Anthony Hopkins
You get to do a lot of things when you become a big star and the frequently cited greatest actor of your generation, and one of those things, apparently, is get a decent-sized budget and some recognizable actors to star in your self-indulgent, incomprehensible art movie, and then have said movie played and praised at some of the biggest film festivals in America. Make no mistake: Were Slipstream—annoying, pretentious twaddle of the highest order—not written and directed by Anthony Hopkins and starring the likes of Hopkins, Christian Slater, John Turturro and Jeffrey Tambor, it would merit little more than an offhand dismissal from film-festival audiences. “Typical first-feature wankery,” they might say.
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And they’d be right, but it’s kind of hard to say that about Hannibal Lecter. So you might try to engage with Hopkins’ film, which, near as I can tell, focuses on harried screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins) and his increasingly tenuous grip on reality. Sometimes he’s interacting with a colorful cast of criminals, barmaids and aspiring actresses, and sometimes these people are actually characters in a movie that he’s working on. The actors show up later in the film in other roles as well, further blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, but at that point it’s likely you’ll have given up trying to figure out what’s going on. And then (spoiler alert): It’s all a dream! Maybe.
Hopkins uses every visual and aural trick in the book to bombard the viewer, with constant quick cuts, spliced-in stock footage and old movie clips, changes in color and composition and a frenetic sound design (although he deserves credit for an effective self-composed score). He also seemingly encourages the entire cast to overact, as nearly everyone yells and gesticulates and emotes grandiosely. Turturro gets a few laughs by overdoing his obnoxious Hollywood producer character, but Slater is unbearable as a slick hitman who delivers an interminable monologue about Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
That movie’s star, Kevin McCarthy, shows up in a random cameo that’s obviously supposed to mean something. Slipstream aims for a dreamlike commentary on how movies and memories can become muddled and mixed, but it ends up like a David Lynch film without the poetry.