Chloë Sevigny Movies
Before she became an actress, Chloë Sevigny was Jay McInerney's "It" girl. After sighting the young Sevigny on the streets of New York, where she repeatedly drew notice for her distinct, idiosyncratic fashion sense, the yuppie author was moved to dedicate a seven-page New Yorker spread to her, in the course of which he anointed her with said title. Whether or not she was "It," Sevigny did enjoy a rudimentary helping of fame: at the time, she was an intern at Sassy magazine, where she had been employed after magazine writers spotted her and used her as a model for their publication. So, before her film career began, Sevigny was perhaps the country's other most famous intern.Raised in the wealthy, conservative suburb of Darien, Connecticut in 1974, Sevigny began hanging out in New York as a teenager. After her initial recognition from Sassy and McInerney, she made her screen debut in Larry Clark's Kids. Sevigny played one of the few sympathetic characters in the controversial 1995 film, a teen infected with AIDS by the so-called "virgin surgeon" to whom she had lost her virginity. The following year, she appeared as a bored Long Island teen in Steve Buscemi's directorial debut, Trees Lounge, and then went on to collaborate with Kids screenwriter and then-boyfriend Harmony Korine on Gummo (1997). Her pairing with the iconoclastic Korine led one magazine to dub them as the new John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, but the film was savaged by some critics and virtually ignored by its intended arthouse audience.
More substantial luck greeted Sevigny in her 1998 role in Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco; the film won a number of positive reviews, with praise for Sevigny's portrayal of a thoughtful Hampshire graduate trying to make it in the publishing world. The actress' other film that year, the little-seen Palmetto, cast her as a millionaire's stepdaughter. Sevigny was back the following year in A Map of the World, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; Boys Don't Cry, in which she played the girlfriend of Brandon Teena, a real-life girl who passed as a boy; and Julien Donkey-Boy, her third collaboration with screenwriter-turned-director Korine. Sevigny's role in Boys Don't Cry courted particular notice and critical praise, earning Sevigny Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Further notice greeted her part in American Psycho, Mary Harron's incredibly controversial 2000 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name.
Continuing to appear in such features as Demonlover and Party Monster in 2003, Sevigny once again found herself involved in a controversial film with her role in Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny. Premiering to much critical derision at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival (film critic Roger Ebert was quoted as saying it may be the worst film in the history of the festival), Sevigny shocked audiences by performing fellatio on the director/star in the film's explicit coda.
Undeterred by the controversy surrounding The Brown Bunny, Sevigny's star continued to rise with supporting roles in such well-received projects as Shattered Glass and Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. In 2006, she took her first shot at series television with a starring role on the HBO polygamy drama Big Love. Playing alongside Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin, Sevigny and the show both received high marks from critics and audiences.
Along with the second season of Big Love, in 2007 audiences could find Sevigny in David Fincher's acclaimed serial-killer docudrama Zodiac. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
As another installment of Whit Stillman's trilogy, The Last Days of Disco fits chronologically between Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994), with several cameos overlapping and linking the films. During "the very early 1980s," friends gather at a popular Manhattan disco club reminiscent of Studio 54, where getting past the velvet ropes and inside was the first step. Edgy ad-exec Jimmy (Mackenzie Astin) can sometimes get his clients in with the help of the club's womanizing assistant manager, his pal Des (Chris Eigeman), who lets them enter via the rear door. Beautiful brunette Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) and her former college classmate Alice (Chloe Sevigny) move about the club during the 24-minute opening club sequence. Attorney Tom (Robert Sean Leonard) takes an interest in calm, reserved Alice. Both Alice and the opinionated, assertive Charlotte hold day jobs as entry-level editorial associates at a small book publisher. With Holly (Tara Subkoff) as a third roommate, the trio rents a railroad flat in the Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood. Charlotte throws dinner parties in an effort to solidify a social circle as an alternative to "the ferocious pairing off" around her. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, (more)
When new evidence confirms that he was framed, reporter Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson) is released from prison after serving two years. He then goes on to demonstrate repeatedly that he is the dumbest, most masochistic noir hero since Adam ate the apple. His original plan, to leave Palmetto, is foiled when he runs into his girlfriend Nina (Gina Gershon), a successful sculptor who truly loves him. Unfortunately, he also runs into Rhea Malroux (Elisabeth Shue), a conniving femme fatale and wife of a dying millionaire, who offers him $50,000 for a small part in a phony kidnapping of her stepdaughter Odette (Chloe Sevigny. Feeling that he is owed something for his lost two years, and blinded by Rhea's sexuality, Harry agrees to participate even after he realizes he was set up from the very beginning. Complicating matters for himself, he also accepts an offer from the DA to serve as press liaison on the case. As the kidnapping careens out of control, Harry's involvement follows the same trajectory. His downfall is that he thinks he's clever, but his ability to think rationally is compromised from the start and worsens from there. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Harrelson, Elisabeth Shue, (more)
In this elliptical ensemble piece, which marks the directorial debut of indie bad boy Harmony Korine, the teens of tornado-scarred Xenia, OH, kill cats, tape their boobies, arm-wrestle, bathe, cross-dress, huff glue, avoid perverts, pay to have sex with retarded girls, lift makeshift dumbbells to the strains of Madonna's "Like a Prayer," fight, cuss, shave their eyebrows, undergo cancer treatment, euthanize senior citizens, and pee on passing cars. A hallucinatory barrage of images and scenarios with little in the way of traditional plot, Gummo has been variously described as a surrealist joke, a visual poem, and a worm's-eye view of white-trash suffering. The main characters include Solomon (Jacob Reynolds), who sells cat carcasses to a middleman who procures them for use at a local Chinese restaurant; his mother (Linda Manz), who teaches him to tap dance while reminiscing about her dead husband; Tummler (Nick Sutton), a mullet-haired local sex symbol; a midget (Bryant L. Crenshaw); a pair of boy-crazy, bleach-blond sisters named Dot (Chloe Sevigny) and Helen (Carisa Bara); a slut with a lump in her breast (Lara Tosh); a group of drunken louts; and Bunny Boy (Jacob Sewell), who wanders the town enigmatically in a pair of long pink ears. In between scenes of these characters enacting their bizarre routines, Korine intersperses impressionistic and quasi-documentary scenes with voice-over narration that ranges from incest memoirs to arty dialogue along the lines of "He's got what it takes to be a legend: He's got a marvelous persona." Shot just outside Nashville, TN, Gummo includes costume designs by Korine's then-girlfriend, Chloe Sevigny, who also plays Dot and who previously starred in the Korine-scipted, Larry Clark-directed Kids. Jacob Reynolds would go on to appear in Getting to Know You, though few of the director's other discoveries have appeared on film since. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacob Reynolds, Nick Sutton, (more)
Character actor Steve Buscemi made his debut as a writer and director with this seriocomic tale of a guy who is going through something but doesn't know just what it is. Tommy is a 31-year-old auto mechanic who lost his last job after "borrowing" 1,500 dollars from the cash register and heading to Atlantic City, where he wasted no time losing it all at the tables. The fact that he can't get his own car to run isn't impressing any prospective employers, so Tommy spends much of his time at the Trees Lounge, a local watering hole conveniently located downstairs from his apartment. Eventually Tommy lands some work driving an ice cream truck and becomes acquainted with his ex-girlfriend's 17-year-old niece, Debbie (Chloë Sevigny). When they half-heartedly fall into a romance, it's just one more thing for Tommy to be confused about. Buscemi draws upon a rich cast of supporting actors, including Elizabeth Bracco, Anthony LaPaglia, Carol Kane, Debi Mazar, Samuel L. Jackson, and Mimi Rogers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Buscemi, Mark Boone, Jr., (more)
Kids offers a bleak, unblinking view of a group of vacuous, thoughtless New York City teens in their ceaseless quest for sex, drugs, and trouble. The film primarily follows Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick), who, having just realized the conquest of his latest virgin, brags that by day's end he will claim one more. While he and his friends brag to each other about their sexual exploits, Jenny (Chloë Sevigny) describes her own less-than-romantic encounter with Telly. Soon after the conversation, she learns that Telly, the only boy with whom she has slept, has infected her with the AIDS virus. Devastated, she sets out to find him and share the news. Meanwhile, Telly has set his sights on Darcy (Yakira Peguero), a lovely young girl whom he invites for a skinny dip at the local pool. Together with his friends, Telly drags Darcy along, and the entire crew jump the fence after hours. There he presents his now-familiar spiel which Darcy naïvely accepts, and the scene is set for disaster as the group heads back to a vacant apartment for an evening of sex, booze, drugs, and debauchery. Jenny finally locates Telly at the impromptu party and rushes to confront him, although she may be too late to save the next virgin in line from sharing her fate. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, (more)
