Some movies, especially indie movies where the protagonist is a young man, are clearly the wet dream version of a writer’s own idealization of his coming of age. So no surprise that Elijah Wood’s character in All I Want claims to be a writer even at age 17, even still a virgin, even though he does nothing all day but write letters to a father he’s never met that tossed into a footlocker rather than mailed.
Wood’s Jones Dylan shows up in some anonymous small town (which is not in Texas and is somewhere 2000 miles from either Chicago or New York), drops out of college and takes an apartment off campus. He clearly has issues, having shown up with nothing but the aforementioned footlocker and an old red portable typewriter on which he composes the missives. A quick learner, he buys things as soon as their absence is mentioned by one of his housemates. Who are a gay painter cowboy (Aaron Pearl), an aspiring slut actress (Mandy Moore looking luscious as a blonde) and a confused photographer (Franke Potente from Run Lola Run and Bourne Identity), and of course the two women despise each other so having to do with one puts the other off the range.
Wood’s character frequently hallucinates and in some scenes I feel we are supposed to be uncertain whether he is dreaming or not. The belly dancer is obviously in his head, for example, but the scene where he is making out with Moore, well, not sure. Presumably the car crash is real. In a craftier director’s hands, this trickery might be more successful but Jeffrey Porter is too much of a novice to properly handle the surreality. Overall not bad, definitely has some good performances, but not something I’d go out of my way to see even on TV.
okay
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