Tetro

It just might be that director Francis Ford Coppola has entered what one critic waggishly calls “the Interesting Failure phase” of his career. Coppola is now committed to making low-budget art films, exploring themes and working in styles that are resolutely noncommercial. Tetro (Vincent Gallo), the eponymous protagonist of his latest effort, is an unsuccessful writer working in a Buenos Aires theater who passes his leisure hours with girlfriend Miranda (Maribel Verdú). An unexpected and unwelcome visit from his younger half-brother, Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich), sets off an operatic progression of events that include acts of sexual revenge and the revelation of dark family secrets. Tetro would be pretty tough sledding under any circumstances, but the presence of surly, skeevy Gallo in the lead role undercuts whatever chance it had of appealing to mainstream audiences. Shot in black and white in an exotic location, Tetro has the feel of European art films from the 1960s. Unfortunately, it also suffers from a self-aware earnestness that reeks of pretension. Not a necessary purchase. (E. Hulse)