We haven’t heard much lately from Harmony Korine, the one-time wunderkind of daft hipster experimental films. At a young age, Korine wrote “Kids” and directed “Gummo,” movies that some people thought were visionary.
“Mister Lonely” is his first film since 1999’s “Julien Donkey-Boy,” and it’s bad enough to make you long for the days when Korine was trendy.
The story begins with a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna, from “Y Tu Mama Tambien”) plying his trade on the streets of Paris. Not a great success, he moves to Scotland after a chance encounter with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton).
She and her husband, who “lives as Charlie Chaplin,” have a commune there with other impersonators. There’s an Abraham Lincoln, a Queen Elizabeth, a Shirley Temple and three Stooges. No Shemp, however.
The group has a vague plan to start their own theater and perform, missing the hint that the only place a celebrity impersonator can really flourish is probably Las Vegas. Trouble in the Chaplin-Monroe relationship brings up meager, inscrutable drama, and at one point the friends must euthanize some sheep.
There is another story line, unconnected to the commune. In a Third World jungle, a priest (director Werner Herzog) presides over a nunnery, where the sisters have discovered a way to fly.
Perhaps the two parts of the movie are connected by the aspiration to take flight, or using costumes to become closer to one’s self or to God, or making rainbows out of unicorn horns. I really don’t know.
It’s pretty excruciating to sit through, even if Korine has a talent for winsome little touches, like the scene where Michael Jackson says goodbye to his Paris apartment.
The cast struggles. French gnome Denis Lavant is an acrobatic Chaplin, and his former director, cult figure Leos Carax, is a convincing talent agent. It’s hard for the great Samantha Morton to be bad, and she’s not. Luna has the Michael Jackson moves down, although he looks understandably bewildered by what he’s supposed to be doing in the rest of the (at least partly improvised) film.
Surely this film will find defenders, and there’s something kind of sweet about that. But Korine’s personality no longer looks avant-garde, just ordinary. And exasperating.
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