Do we really need another ensemble drama about self-absorbed New Yorkers? Probably not, but Heights is good enough to transcend its familiar premise. Director Terrio and screenwriter Amy Fox (who adapted her own play) offer both substance and style, and they've got an eclectic cast of newcomers and veterans who excel in roles large and small.
Heights takes place over the course of a single day, following a core group of city dwellers as they interact in various ways. A grande dame actress (Close), her photographer daughter (Banks), the daughter's fiancé (Marsden) and an up-and-coming actor (Bradford), along with a host of lesser characters, have the kind of interlocking encounters that characterize these sorts of ensemble dramas. Similar in structure to Paul Haggis' Crash, but without the heavy-handed social commentary, Heights ends up with a few too many convenient coincidences to be entirely believable.
If its plot is overdetermined, Heights' characters are beautifully realized, especially by Close in her best performance in years, a force of nature as the fierce matriarch of Manhattan theater. Cinematographer Jim Denault shoots New York as lovingly as Gordon Willis did in Woody Allen's Manhattan, and the rest of the movie follows in derivative, but impeccable, fashion.