FilmBlather.com

"They say it's lonely at the top/But let me tell you man, it kills at the bottom"

Prey for Rock & Roll is either very cynical or quite naive, and that title, with its first word already being misspelled by absolutely everyone, suggests the former. This is a movie about a peerless rock & roll hopeful that steadfastly refuses to glamorize her dream, to the point of making her and her bandmates look misguided and quixotic in their pursuit of rock stardom. It's a poignant irony, one that makes you wish the script was less prone to melodrama and had fewer pointless subplots.

If it reaches the right audiences, Prey for Rock & Roll could, somewhat belatedly, make Gina Gershon into a major star. She plays Jackie, a woman who has dreamt of becoming a rock star ever since her early teens, when she saw Tina Turner bring down the house. Unfortunately, Jackie is now about to turn forty, and her band, Clam Dandy still has not made it out of the local club scene. She is haunted by visions of herself playing these clubs when she is fifty or sixty and asks "at what point will I become a joke?"

The film ventures only tentatively into Jackie's love life, showing her break up with her girlfriend early on and then dip into an affair with a man that goes nowhere. It is much more interested in the relationships of the decidedly heterosexual Tracy (Drea de Matteo), Clam Dandy's guitarist. She is dating the scummy and condescending Nick (Ivan Martin), who encourages her to quit the joke of a band and come with him to Mexico.

Meanwhile, a small-time agent is lurking in the background promising to come up with a contract but consistently not delivering. Sally's brother Animal (Mark Blucas) gets released from prison and starts sweetly hitting on Jackie. Nick starts getting creepy with Tracy, and the rest eventually intervene in a big way. Do you get the sense that there is enough material here for a season of a television show? Yeah, I felt that too.

This is not a criticism; I think the irony makes for a much richer film, and I do think it was at least somewhat intentional. So many of these movies goad us to blindly go along with its characters' irrational dedication that it is refreshing to see one that is at least implicitly pessimistic about "the dream." Clam Dandy's staunch refusal to give up is touching, but a little depressing, too. Some people will never make it big; it's the nature of the beast, and I'm glad the script recognizes that.

I wish the script had been as cynical towards the soap opera that is the characters' personal lives. Useless subplots go absolutely nowhere and, to the best of my discernment, have no literal or thematic bearing on the plot proper. The band is forgotten for what feels like an hour in the second act so that we can indulge in two sordid love affairs, neither particularly interesting. Mark Blucas, as one of the principal love interests, has maybe the most thankless role of all time.

Gina Gershon, on the other hand, is fairly spectacular, sometimes working on an entirely different level from the rest of the film. Yes, that's really her singing. And yes, she really does bear an uncanny resemblance to Angelina Jolie in both looks and mannerisms. Am I the only one who has noticed this or is it simply too obvious to mention? She has done some great indie and supporting work in her nearly 20-year career, but she is meant for stardom if anyone is. And if I can't quite muster real enthusiasm for Prey for Rock & Roll, I sure hope it finds an audience.