Everyone Asked About You begins as struggling starlet, Simone (Rachel Bailit), languishes in a hotel bed. Her manager/lover Jack (John Lacy) stands nearby attempting to convince Simone to get up. The two Hollywood players need to make a very important meeting that will result in 3 million dollars of production money for their next film. But what is it that keeps Simone resistant? Is she being a diva or is there something more to it? Lacy, who stars, writes, and directs a rapturous ode to Hollywood’s darker side through the lens of a French New wave film. The result is a movie that is dripping with “cool” and lousy with style. Everyone Asked About You makes us both love and hate everything about the Hollywood machine.
So what DID happen? That is for the viewer to piece together.
Jumping back and forth in time we get to know who Simone is. She sits at the center of a queen-sized bed, with her thick eye makeup and blonde bombshell wig, signing 8×10 photos for fans. You would think that she has it all. Far from it actually. We learn of her difficult childhood, almost a requisite for struggling artists. We peek into the warped suppression from her mother that is enrobed in guilt. We learn how Jack and Simone meet on the set of one of his previous films. The two share a meet-cute where Producer Jack upgrades Simone’s no-name role to a speaking part and her career takes flight. Later in the movie we watch Jack cut lines of coke with a SAG card. Again the strange duality and truth of dreams.
It becomes apparent that something very bad happened when Jack and Simone met with investors RJ (Patrick Gallagher) and Gunther (Werner Daehn) in their high stakes encounter. So much so that it sends Simone into an existential spiral. While this story is far from new and even less surprising, what makes the film work is the new take on how the story is told. Featuring masterful Cinematography by Denis Maloney, we jump from style and film stock giving each particular timeline a look and feel that clues us in to a specific timeline. Director Lacy trusts his audience to catch the pattern and connect the dots. This is exhilarating plot delivery and one that makes you sit up and pay attention.
Bailit carries this film with her performance as Simone. Sultry, sexy, iconic, yet vulnerable, Bailit gives Simone an IDGAF attitude while letting her face and body language tell a very different story. Here we have a tragic bad ass who has had it with her past and the Hollywood system that drains her. At one point, she confides in a trusted friend, lamenting her choice to be come an actor and how everything is so painful. This friend remarks, “All the pain you are having is part of your art.” This says it all. What a brilliant line.
Writer-director John Lacy should be proud of what he has accomplished here. Think Mulholland Drive meets 8 1/2 and you have an idea of where this goes. Everyone Asked About You is both a celebration and condemnation of the Hollywood ecosystem. It is ugly, beautiful, honest, and misleading. That’s showbiz baby.
