The Elephant King

Seduced by Thailand’s perverse exoticism, a Western anthropologist-cum-slacker (Jonno Roberts) loses himself in drug-fueled oblivion and persuades his manic-depressive little brother (Ellington) to fly in from New York for a contact high. Supple camerawork and evocative cinematography don’t compensate nearly enough for a mealy plot that reduces all involved into the laziest cultural stereotypes. Naïveté drives the characters and the filmmaking—a lethal combination for a movie that’s desperate to come across as world-weary and wise.