Camille (2007)
Camille wants only two things in life: To be with her deadbeat convict boyfriend Silias, and to get married and see Niagra Falls on her honeymoon.
The problem is she's dead, and that poses a problem for a rotting -- yet still ambulatory -- corpse.
Yes, this is the premise of Camille, a disastrously misguided tragicomedy that offers a whole host of horrible characters set in a wholly absurd storyline.
As promised, Camille (Sienna Miller) croaks pretty early in the film thanks to bad driving from Silias (James Franco), but death doesn't keep her from getting up and brushing herself off. Sure, she's starting to rot (and smell), digits are falling off, and her hair's coming out (hence the shocking red wig), but that's life. Er, not life.
Zombie Camille at first shocks Silias, but his love for her convinces him to keep heading from their hick-town marriage ceremony to Niagara Falls -- despite a whole host of cops on his trail, who want him arrested all due to a simple misunderstanding involving a stolen wallet. Along the way the duo encounters a traveling circus, led by carnie Cowboy Bob (David Carradine), whose claim to fame is running a live-action carousel complete with horses spray-painted various colors.
And that's Camille, a Natural Born Killers-style road trip as our anti-heroes make their way across the country in the least efficient way possible, only for the film to culminate in a wholly absurd ending on the Maid of the Mist. Wheee!
While the performances in this film are capable, the story they are put to is so downright silly, absurd, and pathetic that none of that really matters. Neither writer Nick Pustay nor director Gregory Mackenzie have any credits with which I'm familiar, which makes the appearance of two semi-A-listers here all the more baffling. One presumes that Camille will not become a calling card for either.
Rating
1.0 out of 5 Stars
- Director: Gregory Mackenzie
- Producer: Aaron Barnett, Albert S. Ruddy, Brett Walsh, Bruce McNall, Charles Finch
- Screenwriter: Nick Pustay
- Stars: Sienna Miller, James Franco, David Carradine, Scott Glenn, Ed Lauter
- MPAA Rating: PG-13
- Year of Release: 2007
- Released on Video: 09/15/2009
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