Amazon Falls

Amazon Falls follows the increasingly sad exploits of a former B-movie actress (April Telek’s Jana) who is, on the eve of her 40th birthday, attempting to break through into the mainstream, with the film detailing Jana’s day-to-day encounters with the various people in her life (including a coke-snorting boyfriend and a sad-sack of an agent). Filmmaker Katrin Bowen’s unabashedly melodramatic approach proves effective at initially luring the viewer into the proceedings, as the central character attempts to navigate the impressively seedy underbelly of the Hollywood scene. There’s little doubt that Bowen’s lighthearted touch results in a number of unexpectedly compelling and frequently funny interludes, including Jana’s audition for a leading role that eventually morphs into an audition for a Russian sex cyborg. The film’s admittedly stagnant atmosphere inevitably does become a bit of a problem, however, and it’s clear that the uneventful bent of Curry Hitchborn’s screenplay results in a less-than-enthralling midsection. That said, the movie picks up as it becomes a progressively darker character study, with Telek’s striking performance ensuring that one can’t help but feel a great deal of sympathy for Jana’s increasingly depressing spiral into anonymity (and this is to say nothing of the memorably downbeat finale).

*** out of ****