Echo Park

An aspirant actress turned stripagrammer, her songwriting pizza-delivery-boy lodger, and the Austrian body-builder neighbour (not a hundred umlauts from one Arnold S) bid fair to become the Jules et Jim of the seedy clapboard milieu of suburban LA. Romanian-born, Vienna-trained Dornhelm has the quirky mitteleuropäisch eye (cf Milos Forman) for the freaks and oddities of American life. Tom Hulce, a long way from Amadeus, reveals a splendidly individual comic presence; and the hopes, shocks, sulks and loyalties of this free-wheeling trio are a small but real delight. MHoy.