Primary navigation
LA without a Map
UK/France/Finland 1998
Reviewed by Melanie McGrath
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
After a chance meeting in a Bradford cemetery with Barbara, a young American actress, aspiring writer Richard Tennant breaks off his engagement, quits the undertaking business and heads off to LA to find true love with Barbara. But once there, Richard finds he has a rival in Patterson, a rising film director, who promises to take Barbara away from her job waitressing and make a star of her.
Moving into an apartment in a seedy part of town, Richard starts work with his oddball musician neighbour Moss cleaning swimming pools. In his spare time he concentrates on winning Barbara. Moss, meantime, falls for Barbara's best friend Julie and the foursome drive off together for a weekend in Vegas where Richard and Barbara wed. Back in LA Richard finds himself a hot-shot agent, Takowsky, who enthuses over Richard's script for a film called Oozy Suicide. Barbara auditions for a choice film role. But Barbara discovers the film's director is Patterson and soon she starts dating him again. Desperate to win back his wife, Richard tries to talk to Barbara at a party, but things go from bad to worse and Richard is arrested for harassment. Takowsky comes to the rescue, bails Richard out and sends him back to England.
Richard is back conducting funerals in Bradford when Barbara appears with a contract for the film rights to Oozy Suicide. She has finally seen through Patterson and has come back to England to make a new start with Richard.
Review
Apparently, LA without a Map is a romantic comedy. And, indeed, there are two romantic moments in this film: the first when Richard and Barbara look out across a morbid graveyard to the bright lights of Bradford; the second, when Richard finds himself alone looking out across another set of bright lights to the moral graveyard of Los Angeles. And there are two comic moments, both from movie agent Takowsky. He responds to Richard's novel by saying, "We call them treatments here," and later insists on using a hankie to pick up a prison phone.
If these four moments are sufficient to convince you LA without a Map is a romantic comedy, then read no further. If not, then let me say that this film fails on so many levels, to list them all on paper would be to cause global deforestation. We'll begin at the top, with genre. Aside from romance and comedy, the romantic comedy presupposes that, whatever their complexities, the protagonists emerge at the end as two more or less sympathetic people who make a winning sort of couple. Surely what the genre cannot accommodate is a heroine of such irritating superficiality, such infantilised passivity, that you wouldn't wish her on Donald Trump, even with a prenup. We've seen such 'heroines' before - A Life Less Ordinary had one in Cameron Diaz's character. They may well be the immature man's wet dream, but to the rest of us they're a pain in the arse. "I knew she was trouble the moment I set eyes on her," says our hero and anyone versed in the genre could fill in the rest.
The script (written by Richard Rayner, author of the original autobiographical novel, and writer/director Mika Kaurismäki, brother of the more famous Aki) appears to suffer from split-personality disorder. Whole scenes are devoted to a single laboured punchline, while the marriage of hero and heroine (a big event, you would think) happens in such a rush shotguns are nearly visible. Cliché piles on banality to produce such lines as, "Twelve of these and you really know you've had a drink," and "When I get married I want it to mean something!" There is much in the execution that is simply sloppy. Time is sloppily elastic. Bradford is not "10,000 miles" from LA and an amplified acoustic guitar does not sound the same as an electric one.
References to directors Jim Jarmusch and Andrei Tarkovsky seem pretentious, cameos by Johnny Depp, Anouk Aimée and the Leningrad Cowboys equally so only adding to the general air of desperation. Even David Tennant's easy, confident performance and competent back-up from the supporting cast (with the exception of Vincent Gallo, who overplays) fail to take this film out of the doldrums. LA without a Map is one piece of celluloid that deserves to get lost.
Credits
- Producers
- Julie Baines
- Sarah Daniel
- Pierre Assouline
- Screenplay
- Richard Rayner
- Mika Kaurismäki
- Based on the novel Los Angeles without a Map by
- Richard Rayner
- Director of Photography
- Michel Amathieu
- Editor
- Ewa J. Lind
- Production Designer
- Caroline Hanania
- Music
- Sebastien Cortella
- ©Los Angeles Without a Map Ltd
- Production Companies
- A Dan Films (London)/Euro American Films (Paris)/Marianna Films (Helsinki) production in association with the Arts Council of England/Baltic Media/the Yorkshire Media Production Agency/the Finnish Film Foundation
- With the participation of British Screen and BSkyB
- Co-produced by CLT-UFA International
- Developed with the support of the European Script Fund and the Nordic Film & TV Fund
- This film has been supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England
- Finance provided by British Screen through its subsidiary the European Co-Production Fund (UK)
- Part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund
- Executive Producer
- Deepak Nayar
- Line Producers
- US Unit:
- Brent Morris
- Euro American Films:
- Guy Marignane
- Co-producer
- Mika Kaurismäki
- Production Co-ordinators
- US Unit:
- Maria De La Torre
- UK Unit:
- Julia Bennett
- Dan Films:
- Em Muslin
- Euro American Films:
- Jorane Castro
- Sophie Balagayrie
- Vincent Gnemmi
- Marianna Films:
- Minna Väisänen
- Production Managers
- US Unit:
- Brigitte Mueller
- UK Unit:
- Shellie Smith
- Location Managers
- US Unit:
- Jeremy Alter
- UK Unit:
- Noola Delany
- Post-production Supervisor
- Guy Ducker
- Assistant Directors
- US Unit:
- T. Bird
- Melissa V. Barnes
- Pamela Altieri-Paterra
- Rebecca MacDonald
- UK Unit:
- Ian Ferguson
- Matt Baker
- Ben Johnson
- Script Supervisors
- US Unit:
- Sylvie Michel-Casey
- UK Unit:
- Danuta Skarszewska
- Casting
- US:
- Randi Hiller
- Steve Brooksbank
- UK:
- Vanessa Pereira
- Simone Ireland
- Script Consultant
- Bill Gorgensen
- Additional Camera
- US Unit:
- Pia Tikka
- US Unit Steadicam
- Bruce Alan Greene
- Digital Effects
- The Film Factory at VTR
- Special Effects
- US Unit:
- Absolute Effects
- Ron Ambro
- UK Unit:
- Emergency House
- Graphics Designer
- US Unit:
- Regina Lee Herve
- Art Directors
- US Unit:
- Tracey L. Gallacher
- UK Unit:
- Andrew Munro
- US Unit Set Designer
- Will Batts
- Set Decorators
- US Unit:
- Marcia Calosio
- UK Unit:
- Emma McDevitt
- Costume Designer
- Yasmine Abraham
- Costume Consultant
- US Unit:
- Magali Guidasci
- Costume Supervisor
- US Unit:
- Maeve Deming Guesdon
- Key Make-up Artist
- US Unit:
- Raqueli Dahan
- Make-up Artist
- UK Unit:
- Carole Williams
- Key Hairstylist
- US Unit:
- Nicholas Serino
- Hairdresser
- UK Unit:
- Scott Beswick
- Main Title Design
- Pia Tikka
- Titles
- Janice Mordue
- Titles/Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- Music Performers
- Sebastien Cortella
- Jean-Paul Long
- David Salkin
- Music Supervisor
- Diana Graham
- Music Mixers
- Isabelle Martin
- Leningrad Cowboys:
- Matti Hukkanen
- Soundtrack
- "All Day and All of the Night" by Ray Davies, performed by The Rascals; "Floating" by/performed by Mikko Lankinen; "Delayrium" by Matti Pitsinki, performed by Laika and the Cosmonauts; "Groovin' on the Bus" by Nyrobe Cormier, Arden Lo, performed by Mista Taboo; "Colors", "Woman", "Za-Za-Zu-Zi-Dub" by Darek Malejonek, performed by Houk; "Big Decision", "Reckless" by Colin Devlin, performed by The Devlins; "Creepy Connection" by/performed by Leningrad Cowboys; "A Taste of Honey" by Robert W. Scott, Ray Marlow, performed by The Rascals and Vincent Gallo; "Stars" by Steve Hillier, performed by Dubstar; "Polaroid" lyrics by T. Godding, Janet Wolstenholme, music/performed by Bandit Queen; "California" by Sue Vickers, performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band; "Every Living Day" by Margaret Connell, performed by The Heaters; "My Selfish Gene" by Cerys Matthews, Mark Roberts, Albert Richards, Paul Jones, Owen Powell, performed by Catatonia; "U16 Girls" by Francis Healy, performed by Travis; "Generals" by Joseph A. Jones, Lyvio R. Gay, Lennox Maturine, Roderick P. Roachford, performed by Fu-Schnickens; "The Bullet" by K. Franklin, M. McCarver, performed by Celly Cell; "Beware", "Here I Go" by Leroy Edwards, Michael J. Tyler, performed by Mystikal; "Flying Away" by Marc Lee Brown, C. Franck, Nina Isabela Rocha Miranda, performed by Smoke City; "Someone Like You" by Jussi Penttinen, arranged by Jussi Penttinen, Mauri Sumén, Matti Hukkanen, performed by Leningrad Cowboys; "Rumours" by/performed by Jonathan Butler; "Bog La Bag" by Carlinhos Brown, Celso Fonseca, performed by Carlinhos Brown; "Como Explicante" by Roberto Torres, performed by Trio Jerez; "Squealing" by Miikka Paatelainen, Mari Hatakka, Tiina Isohanni, performed by Mari Hatakka, Tiina Isohanni and Fat Bullets; "You Got Me" by Louise Wener, performed by Sleeper; "Pour tour l'or du monde" by Marcel Mouloudji, Daniel White
- Sound Design
- Paul Jyrälä
- Re-recordists
- Dean Humphreys
- Craig Irving
- ADR
- Wallah - Looping Heads:
- John Coella
- Michael Franco
- Rowena Guiness
- Julie Lesende
- Patti Tippo
- Jonathan Newman
- Tracy Hostmyer
- Recordists:
- Steve Nafshun
- Dan Chapman
- Scott Jones
- Foley
- Recording Artistes:
- Jason Swanscott
- Dianne Greaves
- Editor:
- John Griffith
- .
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Scott McElroy
- Andy Bradford
- Film Extracts
- La vie de Bohème
(1992- Lola
(1961)- Cast
- David Tennant
- Richard Tennant
- Vinessa Shaw
- Barbara
- Julie Delpy
- Julie
- Vincent Gallo
- Moss
- Cameron Bancroft
- Patterson
- Joe Dallesandro
- Michael
- Anouk Aimée
- herself
- Saskia Reeves
- Joy
- Steve Huison
- Billy
- Lisa Edelstein
- Sandra
- Matthew Faber
- Joel
- Jean-Pierre Kalfon
- Jean-Mimi
- Leningrad Cowboys
- themselves
- James Le Gros
- Takowsky
- Tony Peers
- vicar
- Margo Stanley
- Mrs Blenkinsop
- Malcolm Tierney
- Joy's dad
- Margi Clarke
- Bradford woman
- Monte Hellman
- himself
- Kevin West
- Spielberg man
- Michael Campbell
- young porter
- Brent Morris
- aviator shades cop
- Mista Taboo
- rapper
- Dijon Talton
- kid
- Joey Perillo
- McCrea
- Amanda Plummer
- red pool woman
- Dominic Gould
- music store clerk 1
- André Royo
- music store clerk 2
- Jerzy Skolimowski
- minister
- Don Ranvaud
- man with script
- Debra Carroll
- waitress
- Tootie
- lippy blonde
- Christa Lang
- woman on bus
- Michael Franco
- barman
- Nathalie Huot
- tall woman
- Joseph Arsenault
- jealous man
- Robert Davi
- himself
- Kenneth Hughes
- smoking guest
- Andy Bradford
- corpse
- [uncredited]
- Johnny Depp
- himself
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United Media
- 9,636 feet
- 107 minutes 4 seconds
- Dolby digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic [Technovision]