Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) is a washed out Hollywood psychiatrist. He supposedly counsels the rich and famous. We don’t really see him doing much of that. Mostly he is smoking, cigarettes for upon awakening, while in the shower, while shaving, and pot whenever he can. Next to his office is an empty lot, and that’s where he sits in a plastic lawn chair smoking next to empty palettes and trash while he should be working. He is a wreck of a man with seemingly no future.

The movie introduces us to a cast of Hollywood neurotics whose stories we are supposed to follow and make sense of. Unfortunately, the story lines get so confusing, you can’t follow them, and in the end you can’t remember who was doing what in the beginning, and you wish you had taken notes and made a map of the movie plot.

This may be the kind of movie that you need to watch more than once to get more out of it. There are such movies, and I enjoy watching them. However, in this case, I can’t make myself do it again. The characters are as shallow as the real-world Los Angeles narcissists they try to portray. There really isn’t anything going on. The sound track is boring. The mood is not developed.

Look at the picture above. Here is the high-powered shrink that came home to his house in the Hollywood hills, great pool, wonderful location, everything we all dreamed of, and he’s got nothing better to do but to pass out on the chaise lounge with pills and wine next to him, only to wake up in the morning gray, shivering. Empty. Look at the picture above, take it in, let it settle, and now you don’t have to watch the movie anymore. You got all that you can get out of this.

Rating: *