By Curt Schleier
THE HOTTEST STATE is supposedly about the angst of young love. But the angst most viewers will feel has more to do with the quality of the story. The movie is self-indulgent, its dialogue insipid and there’s not a fresh thought in the nearly-two-hour movie. It’s enough to give independent films a bad name.
THE HOTTEST STATE is based on Ethan Hawke’s 1996 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. When I say “based on,” I mean he changed the background of one of the story’s principal characters.
In the book, William falls for Sarah, a preschool teacher from Seattle who is plump and wears long dresses because she thinks her thighs are fat. In the film, William (Mark Webber) falls for Sara (Catalina Sandino Moreno), an Hispanic girl of uncertain origin. Why the change? Hard to say what purpose it serves. But, then it’s hard to say what purpose any of this serves.
Let us begin with William, a young actor soon to celebrate his 21st birthday. He was conceived in the back seat of a Plymouth Barracuda three weeks after his parents met somewhere near Dallas. They married briefly and divorced less than amicably. When he was eight, his mother moved to New York – or at least the New York area; that’s not entirely clear – and eventually William and his father lose contact.
Sara has a significant Spanish accent, though she was apparently raised in Connecticut after her father left the family. She’s moved to New York City to become a country western singer, but her English pronunciation is so bad you have to wonder what country that might be.
They meet cute. William immediately falls for her and tells a friend: “Sometimes I think if I get her to like me everything I don’t like about myself will disappear.” (Exhibit A in the insipid dialogue category.)
She loves him, she loves him not. The film becomes less an exploration of the pain of young love than soap opera-ish indecision. Yes, she finally agrees that they can live together though without traditional sex. “I think if we have sex I’ll fall in love with you.” (Exhibit B in the insipid dialogue category.) On the plus side, Sara services William in, eh, another way.
She takes him to meet her mother. He passes some kind of test, because she agrees to go to Mexico with him where he is filming Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real.
They spend a week in Mexico before shooting of Camino Real begins and seem to have great and frequent sex. She even wants them to get married, but then she doesn’t. Still life is wonderful. She begs him: “Promise me if something goes wrong, if I run away, you’ll find me and make me kiss you. (Exhibit C in the insipid dialogue category.)
When he returns to New York, Sara decides she doesn’t want a boy friend. So Williams decides to become a whiner and stalker. He calls her and asks her to call him. He calls her back right away to apologize for calling the first time. Then he calls her again and tells her about a date he had with a former girlfriend.
Apparently life without a daddy scarred him emotionally, because as he explains to his mother Jesse (Laura Linney): “I don’t seem to have the first idea how men are supposed to behave.” (Exhibit D, etc., etc.)
Jesse is the man in his life in terms of the no-nonsense advice she gives him. “I think you’ll be astonished how many times you fall in love,” (Exhibit E?) she says when he whines about losing Sara. Life is short, she adds. Get over it. If only he’d listened, the film could have been at least a merciful half hour shorter.
Between her cruel back and forth with William and his childish whining behavior, they clearly are two people who deserve each other.
Oh, there is additional bad news and good news. One of the DVD’s special features is a short also written and directed by Hawke. That’s the bad news. The good news is it really is short.