It seems inevitable that, given its importance in our popular culture as an avatar of disaster and decline, that someone would make a movie about the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. And it doesn't seem particularly surprising that the person who makes that movie would be Sofia Coppola:
I don't know what it says about Stephen Dorff that the first thing I think of when I consider him is his bad-boy act in Britney Spears' video for "Everytime," which is really quite sad, even with the dippy rebirth conclusion. I've seen Blade, and I liked Public Enemies so much I saw it twice, even though I don't know that it registered for me that Dorff was in it. But he looks just fine here, even though I'm not quite sure what the point of the movie is. Will his character become a better person by accepting his responsibilities as a father? That seems a bit trite for Coppola. Will Elle Fanning's character get to be an actual person, or just the angelic, gorgeous, and talented vehicle for her father's growth? Maybe none of that's supposed to matter, maybe the movie is just supposed to be dissolute and lovely and an expression of the boredom of having basically anything you want whenever you want it.