Fame, fame, fatal fame: Lest we forget Morrissey's words, actor-turned- director Adam Goldberg is around to reminds us that it can play hideous tricks on the brain. All those popping flashbulbs have left Gray Evans (Ribisi) feeling a little paranoid. While the movie star endlessly poses on the red carpet next to his willowy, blond starlet wife (Potente), Evans starts to believe that he's constantly being stalked. What's odder is that he keeps running into a video-store clerk (Jackson) whose girlfriend is a dead ringer for the true love (Ricci) the A-lister once left behind. As his mental stability starts to crumble, Evans begins to obsessively insinuate himself into the normal couple's life. The results, as you can undoubtedly guess, start veering toward the disastrous.
Jam-packed with well-known faces (Vince Vaughn, Jason Lee and a host of other Indiewood notables) eager to take the piss out of Tinseltown, I Love Your Work fancies itself a cutting critique of celebrity vapidity. The problem is that this poison-pen letter runs out of ink way too early, and we're left with a loose collection of in-jokes and spot-the-reference allusions to other films. Goldberg's strength as an actor has always been his manic, edgy energy; behind the camera, his live-wire restlessness simply translates as unfocused chaos, and the film's scattershot swipes at easy targets just feel like empty flailing. (Opens Fri; Village East.)
—David Fear