Maladies

"Maladies" remains on too low a boil to communicate any sense of stakes for the various characters. It seems to be trying to say something about creativity, and living one's life on one's own terms, but it's a muddle.

A pretentious head-scratcher involving would-be artistic expression, mental illness and shaving cream (don't ask).

It courts pretension with blithe disregard at every turn.

Overrated, overexposed and overindulgent, James Franco is all over the place, like cow chips in the abandoned pasture of a derelict farm.

The social construction of illness is certainly a worthy topic, but Carter situates his characters far from any semblance of a plot and even further from his heart.

Despite its big-name cast (Catherine Keener is on impressive form), most viewers will find it an impossibly pretentious, drifting picture that, while brimful of pseudo-philosophising, lacks substance where it matters.

The only thing more notable than Maladies's pretentiousness is how harmless that pretentiousness feels.

...we basically wanted to punch the film in the face.

This is Franco's second directorial collaboration with the artiste who goes by the name of Carter, and hopefully they won't push their luck further.

If there's any point to be made it's lost in a sea of meaningless quirk masking as profundity.

Ultimately it adds to the eternally ongoing cinematic conversation about artists and the quirks (healthy and otherwise) that define them.