As someone that spent 18 years in the city of Angels, I have met many Ellie Parkers. I adored this little gem, albeit low budget movie, with some of best acting one could feast their eyes on. The scene with Ellie in the car in a complete hyped up, Star Bucks frenzy, smeared with lipstick, banging her head to Blondie and madly shouting out " I wanna suck Vinnie's ####'!!!" in her New Jersey accent, had me rolling on the floor.For those that know nothing of the dashed dreams of Many desperate Hollywood starlets, and the pure sleaze these women encounter as they try to fulfill their dreams, forget it, you just won't 'get it'. LA is a town, of big talking wannabes and 'Ellie Parker' really led you into that world with it's fake facade and empty promises. Naomi Watts just shines as Ellie Parker. She totally engulfs the screen with her magical expressions of pain, joy, angst, fear, confusion and loneliness.I felt very empty after the final scene, just as Ellie did. The City of Angels changes you, makes you selfish, egotistical, and almost insane. Ellie knew her pursuit of acting had caused her to become a shell of a person, and as a viewer I really felt her pain.So it was shot with a cheap camera, big deal. The messages where there, contrary to what many other reviewers said, you just had to be sensitive enough to pick them up.This film really transported me back to LA, and made me shudder, thanks 'Eliie parker' for reminding me why I left!

A movie doesn't need to be full of action, shooting, love, to be expensive, to be a block buster,..., though I don't like a 'French' school, when two people have enough time and money to be in a single room and make problems to each other. I call t movies 'slow' and 'problematic' without any obvious reason. You see people who are egoistic and bored.A movie can be an extended monologue, if it is totally authentic. If treats tome subject, the live itself as it really is. From the beginning, this movie has a type of wide frame, it is so 'alive', so direct. You see the life without any additional make up, fancy details, you see the life as it is: full of struggle and disappointment, it is the organic part of life, the other moments are happy. The leading character wants to succeed in the world of movie, but it is a hard job, we are the witnesses of dying of her dream and we can see how their life collapse in any aspect, including her love life.People like an ordinary movie, which talk about THEM, about disappointments, hard times, pointless living..., they can relate to it.But, this kind of movies must have some ending, the message. An acceptance or the words of wisdom. This movie has none. Trainspotting, for instance, is pretty entertaining, but generally says how life stinks, whatever we try. The guy is a drug addict, then he tries to work honestly, but his 'past' (his friends) drag them back. But, he finds the solution, he takes the money and go to make an ordinary, but nice, normal life. He had enough strength to go out and live as the other people.Here..., it is nothing but a desperation. Life sucks and that is it. Nothing has learned, grasped, understood, we can't see how the leading actress even she has found the peace..., she is like a white wall, without any feeling,..., this movie says nothing to us. A nice start, which continues through the whole movie..., then..., no messages. Nothing. We can't see that her giving up of the acting really freed her as she says, because the last scene is the opposite: she tries to fulfill her dream, she goes to the last audition, she tries to reach her dream to the last scene. To repeat myself: when the movie is talking about the emptiness of the life, some message must be conveyed. To give up some dreams must be deeply felt and understood, accepted, it must give some additional quality to our lives. To fail, that is not an end. When the house is burned, a Chinese saying says: "Nice, we can see the Moon now, there is no obstacles." This movie is just a pointless struggle which leads to nowhere. It can't entertain, to teach, to say something wise, it is just a half-finished story about the life as it really is, no guaranties, but the final touch.... is a big biiiiiiiiiiiiip...., the movie died before any finish touch. It doesn't need to be a happy end. Just a movie with the proper ending. I gave 4 stars for the realistic picture of the life, but the rest..., is like an unfinished painting.

This movie made me like Naomi Watts. I've never appreciated her acting or her as at all in movies, but she is extremely likable in this one. The movie really okay, with not much of an ending. What continually ruined it for me though was the crappy music (and I'm not talking about the awkward dogstar cameo). The soundtrack sounded like it was from The Worst of Seattle Circa 1995. It took me out of the movie every single time that crap started up because all I could think about was what bad taste the music director had. If you're going to shoot all dogmaish, then you should have some great music, ambient music or none at all. And the techno music was just painful.

With the exception perhaps of "King Kong," Naomi Watts has looked like total hell at some point in every movie she's starred in. She's a brave actress, one with Hollywood starlet looks but without any of the Hollywood starlet vanity.One can't help but feel that she's somewhat wasted in "Ellie Parker," an offbeat, super low-budget film about one struggling actress's daily trials in that vast wasteland known as L.A. The film looks like the kind of thing I would make if I had a fairly high-quality digital camcorder and some editing software. But I do not hold the movie's visual style against it, and it's not for that reason that I think Watts was slumming a bit. No, it's the material that makes "Ellie Parker" a less than (o.k. MUCH less than) satisfying viewing experience.Parker is going through an identity crisis, but unfortunately for us, it's not a very interesting one. She spends all of her time trying to be something that other people want her to be. Even when she's alone, driving from one audition to another, she's practicing lines and accents, and putting on costumes to fit a part. One senses that the filmmakers wanted to show the acting life as it really is for the majority of people in the business: a harrowing, degrading, grueling and exhausting process that leaves those living it adrift. As Parker says at one point in the film, she feels like her life hasn't started yet, and that everything is an audition for some future part. I'm not sure we need yet one more movie that deflates the glamour of Hollywood. I had a hard time not getting frustrated with Parker -- she chooses the acting life, so it's up to her to deal with the consequences. There's nothing stopping her from getting an unglamorous desk job like millions of other Americans who go to work every day and don't spend all of their time whining about it."Ellie Parker" does provide some fascinating glimpses into the entertainment industry, especially in a scene that shows Parker and her friend attending an acting class -- it goes a long way to supporting my half-serious belief that all really good actors must be to a certain extent mentally unbalanced. There's also a delightfully weird final scene that shows Parker auditioning to a living room full of stoned and bored movie producers, a scene that leaves you wondering how certain films ever get made at all.But most of the movie feels underdeveloped and inconsequential, like a film-student experiment.Grade: C