Elia Kazan directed this curiously constipated film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel, about Monroe Starr, a brilliant and efficient studio executive (based upon Fitzgerald's experiences with MGM wunderkind Irving Thalberg). Robert De Niro plays Monroe Starr in a cool and detached manner, and as Kazan pans around the Hollywood Dream Factory of the 1930s, Starr juggles several productions, deals with nervous actors and recalcitrant directors, stays afloat in the Hollywood corporate battlefields, and secretly carries on a love affair with an even cooler and more detached English girl, Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting). ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
I didn't remember this being an F. Scott Fitzgerald story. I didn't read the book so I don't know how closely the film follows. If there was any meaning to it, it was lost on me. And DiNiro was pretty flat. There's a few actors getting small parts which are cool to see (like Angelica Huston). And the sets and old cars are really cool to look at.