An exploration of several interconnected subjects: The Cannes Film Festival, cinema art, money, glamor and death.
The results are revealing rather than revelatory, but chats with Ryan Gosling and Coppola, Scorsese and Polanski flesh out the fun.
Jollied up with some fun anecdotes from Hollywood's great and good, this is entertaining, if hardly hugely revelatory stuff.
Seduced And Abandoned may have limited appeal for general moviegoers but dedicated film buffs will love it.
Directed by Toback, the documentary is a funny and insightful must for movie fans.
Aspiring film-makers won't know whether to feel relief or despair at James Toback's documentary about cinephilia and the movie business.
Jolly good fun, even if it doesn’t exactly manage to fulfil its wonky remit.
Droll, watchable, wittily sobering.
It's a terrifically smart and enjoyable film, with a tinge of sadness in its cinephilia: both men are wounded by the movies.
There’s something typically brilliant and barmy about James Toback’s latest film Seduced & Abandoned.
The revelations about Cannes (the glitz is tacky, the market is real) are all as old as the festival itself; the insights into the movie biz (art doesn't matter, stars do) are less than earth-shattering; even the overarching quasi-comic format is old hat, having been done far better by Morgan Spurlock in The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.
You might reflect on the irony that star wattage is probably the main reason this rambling feature got a theatrical release in the UK, but the knockabout insights – who knew Gosling could be funny about the choice between steak or death? – make for seductive viewing.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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