Faye Dunaway plays Lou Andreas Sand, a fashion model recovering from a nervous breakdown, and Barry Primus is the former photographer who tries to piece together the story of her life in a weekend-long interview at her beachside cottage in this 1970 drama.
The film flashes back to different points of life, mostly (but not necessarily) in chronological order, as she recalls her rise from a meek, compliant young model reporting dutifully to every assignment to superstar cover girl and brittle sophisticate whose emotional fragility leads to self-destructive relationships. Her memories are not to be trusted, of course, and the collision of contradiction adds to the alienating atmosphere.
It's the directorial debut of celebrity photographer Jerry Schatzberg, who created the original story with screenwriter Carole Eastman (writing under the name Adrian Joyce) inspired by a series of interviews he conducted with the real-life fashion model Anne St. Marie. The film is purposely fractured and emotionally distanced, like an American version of the European art films of Alain Resnais or Joseph Losey, and the images are beautifully composed and presented. But there's little depth or resonance in the story, despite a superb performance by Dunaway as the neurotic Lou, whose spiral downward into drugs and one-night-stands derails her career and leads to a suicide attempt.
We never really get a sense of who Lou is, which may be the point as "Lou Andreas Sand" is a construct created by an abused young woman reinventing herself with a new identity in the New York world of haute couture, but it doesn't give us any real insight in place of answers. It's a film of its time, an aggressively alienating portrait of a skin-deep culture of appearances and power and social identity, and its pretentious attitude has not aged well.
It's not just a hard film to warm to, it can be hard to follow or even engage with, but it is an interesting snapshot of a time and a culture and it features one of Dunaway's finest performances. Roy Scheider plays her (possibly abusive) lover, Barry Morse is a sympathetic psychiatrist, and Viveca Lindfors is a powerful manager whose own romantic interest in Lou helps drive her career.
Rated R. Features audio commentary by film historian and filmmaker Daniel Kremer with film historian and podcaster Bill Ackerman, an interview with director Jerry Schatzberg, an alternate version of the opening, and the "Trailers From Hell." A strong option purchase.