LITTLE ASHES
Hoping to expand his fan base beyond tween girls to Chelsea twinks—even though non-stop petitioning by Middle Tennessee Twilight fanatics got the movie its run at The Belcourt—alabaster beauty Robert Pattinson plays bi-curious Salvador Dalà in this silly portrayal of the 1920s Madrid university days of the painter and his pals, gay poet/playwright Federico GarcÃa Lorca and gay-bashing Luis Buñuel. Written by first-time scripter Philippa Goslett, Little Ashes (named after one of DalÃ's paintings) is a typically bombastic lives-of-the-artists production made even more stilted by having all the actors (including the Spanish ones) speak accented English. The first several minutes alone contain so much Castilian overlisping that someone surely must have sprained a tongue.
Pattinson, who's first presented as a twitchy weirdo in ruffled pirate shirts and a hairdo borrowed from Antony & the Johnsons' Antony Hegarty, eventually gets a fantastic sartorial makeover featuring costume designer Antonio Belart's pick of excellent sweater vests. But to say he has difficulty conveying cracked genius is an understatement. At one point, he seems to mimic Jame Gumb's prance in front of the mirror in The Silence of the Lambs until he settles for just bugging his eyes out. Though DalÃ's first smooch with GarcÃa Lorca (Javier Beltrán) in the phosphorescent waters of Cadaqués is steamy, the pleasures of man-man love—and the movie—evaporate quickly when the wildly ambitious painter announces, "I'll bring Paris to its knees!" after he's conflicted about being on his. (Opens Friday at The Belcourt) Melissa Anderson
