The Hottest State

Boy (Ethan Hawke) meets girl (Catalina Sandino Moreno). Boy shacks up with girl. Boy almost marries girl. Girl loses interest in Boy. Boy loses girl. Boy stalks Girl. Boy and Girl lose audience. That pretty much sums up this self-indulgent romantic drama starring, directed and written by Hawke, based on his own novel. Hawke is a Texas-born, New York-based actor who falls for a beautiful not-so-hot singer in a downtown bar and soon hops into bed with her. Even her mother (Sonia Braga) can see they are clearly mismatched, but that doesn't stop them from a torrid affair that sends Hawke's blinded-by-love persona into a spin, spending the second half of the movie trying to win her back. Most of this agonizingly long film is just talk, and talk, and talk some more, but unfortunately the banter isn't exactly scintillating. Laura Linney as his mother and Michelle Williams as an ex-girlfriend are largely wasted in small roles. With no one to tell him to stop, Hawke is in full control in front of and behind the camera for a story not worth telling as a short subject, much less at feature length. He probably was inspired to write the novel/film after starring in Richard Linklater's romantic flicks, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in which he also endlessly talked about life and love. As leat in those movies he had a writer who gave him something interesting to say!