Leaving the dreary December weather of Paris and the wreckage of a failed relationship, Jerome jets off to LA with no clear idea of what he'll do there and little money to support whatever dreams may come. His low budget and lack of a car result in his quickly encountering the Hollywood demimonde: a friendly gay pot dealer named Ross (Chad Allen), a transsexual hooker with a heart of gold named Kaleesha (Diarra Kilpatrick), and a rapidly aging drag queen named Norma Desire (Michael Airington).
Ross supplies the pot and the connections to a casting agent, Norma supplies a place to stay, and Kaleesha supplies lots of sassy conversation. With their help, Jerome begins to navigate the very unfriendly and rejection-filled world of Hollywood casting, going through the motions at a couple of excruciating auditions before landing a commercial that luckily, given his very thick French accent, doesn't require him to speak.
Unfortunately, there's little here that's new or interesting other than Jerome's fish-out-of-water discoveries: It's cold at the beach, you're supposed to tip the bartender, no one rides the bus in LA, and so on. Rather than coming across as a charismatic foreigner who charms his way through Hollywood, Jerome is usually subdued and clueless, and Debets plays him with a sort of permanent Gallic shrug. This is the film that taught me how to say 'whatever' in French: quoi que. When your protagonist walks around saying that, he's definitely not shooting out sparks, and it's hard to care about him.
Supporting players Allen and Airington come off better. As usual, Allen is totally relaxed and cool, and he makes Ross into the type of drug dealer you'd like to hang out with. Airington's world-weary demeanor is harsh and honest. You get the feeling he knows of what he speaks.
What could have been a funnier, sexier, or even scarier film ends up just comme ci, comme ca. The underbelly of Hollywood has got to be more interesting than this.
Waves crash in.
