45 Minutes from Broadway

A filmmaker for over 40 years, Henry Jaglom remains a controversial figure, with some praising the uniqueness of his small-budget, highly personal pictures, and others dismissing him as an untalented hack whose movies amount to tedious navel-gazing. Hardly likely to bridge the divide, Jaglom's latest effort is a big-screen version of his own 2009 play about a family of obscure actors who bicker, reminiscence, and reveal secrets about their pasts during a visit from two daughters—Pandora (Tanna Frederick), a neurotic, stage-obsessed failure, and Betsy (Julie Davis), a straitlaced escapee from her relatives' theatrical mania. Observing the campy domestic drama is Julie's fiancé, James (Judd Nelson), a businessman who—it turns out—will be attracted to the family's outlandishly impractical lifestyle, using the occasion to reveal secrets and longings of his own. Although obviously intended as a tribute to artists who have pursued their dreams—no matter how small the success or recognition achieved (which feels like a defense of Jaglom's career)—the structure here is formulaic, the writing artificial, the acting unsubtle, and the cinematic execution, as usual with Jaglom, haphazard at best (the use of old songs as transitional devices is especially grating). Recommended for Jaglom fans, but optional elsewhere. (F. Swietek)