Overlong drama that isn't capable of making any real point. So she became an actress - so what? She learned to love - big deal. There is a certain eccentricity among the characters and in the dialog and situations, but the kind which is bad for the movie, causing it to often seem absurd.Summer Phoenix, playing the lead, talks and behaves like a semi-retarded person, so there is no choice but to watch the movie as about a retarded girl that makes it in the world of theater - which was clearly not the intended point. We are told early on (in that "Barry Lyndon"-like narration) that she learned to hide her emotions, which certainly explains her autistic stone-face, but the movie suffers for it. She basically walks around like a zombie, and her success as an actress isn't quite credible given her lack of emotions. Occasionally, the movie had that dull, sleepy feel of a Dogma 95 movie. Is it one? I wouldn't be at all surprised.Summer Phoenix is sister of Joaquim Phoenix and the late River Phoenix. Nepotism rarely works.If you'd like to see my Hollywood Nepotism List, with over 350 pictures/entries, contact me by e-mail.

Sleepwalking, dead, boring, an endurance test for the audience - all have been said before so why am I adding to the comments I agree with? There is this:"...it isn't before a man treats her badly that she realizes on stage, that she has talent and that she connects with the audience and emerges as a stronger human being."This must be the reviewer's imagination talking. One can tell that this is the point of the movie that its makers are trying to make but they failed. Utterly. The only reason I kept it going in the machine was to see if they could redeem themselves. But they did not. It's a very big disappointment. There is no connection with the audience - either in the theater's audience inside the story itself or the movie audience watching this.Too many close-ups, just way too many. I'd call it possibly a workshop on close-ups - if you're in the business. Otherwise, why waste money on this? It's just pointless."the film never reveals more than it needs to."Honestly, it reveals nothing. And yes, why was so much money thrown at this movie? I seriously wonder if the backers needed to lose money for tax purposes.

I rented this thinking it might be interesting, and it might have been an interesting story except that is was told in such an uninteresting manner. Hard to follow, strange editing, disjointed storyline, the characters mumble, all in all a dreadfully dull waste of time. I just couldn't get into it and didn't care what happened to the characters - not even Ian Holm could save this film. Unless you need a cure for insomnia, I'd skip it. 3/10, and that's being generous.

Esther Kahn made me regret every second that I spent watching it and I wished I could have reversed my trip to the video store. I'm surprised I even made it through this seemingly bad trip to purgatory. How do films like this ever get the money to have one minute of it made? And how do actresses like Summer Phoenix get work?The characters were so boring and lifeless that I'm surprised the director stayed awake making it. I never felt any empathy or compassion towards Esther in her so-called plight towards trying to become an accomplished actress. Maybe Summer Phoenix should re-think her choice of being an actress as she was horrible. Also, listening to her Oliver Twist meets valley girl English accent was a joke.If this is what films are coming to, I'd rather spend my time doing laundry...at least it's more dynamic and exciting than Esther Kahn.