Grand Street
[Palm Springs International Film Festival 2015 report]
New York, New York is all over GRAND STREET, as first-time writer-director Lex Sidón takes Camilla (Charlotte Riley), an aspiring power agent until she lost it all, and her new acquaintance, aimless and privileged club crawler Amory (Tom Byam Shaw), all over elite Manhattan. The dream-like quality with which the story unfolds (thanks in no small part to the alternative music backdrop and the original score) delights, while the story itself lacks much of interest; a desperate drug-and-alcohol-fueled tour of hip and happening hotspots leaves me cold. And the ending, rather than moving me, left me rolling my eyes. Like so many of the film’s characters, the movie itself is pretty but shallow. –YSM