Welcome to L.A. (1976)

The wealthy “Carl” (Denver Pyle) is reluctantly estranged from his musician son “Carroll” (Keith Carradine) who is, himself, a rather introspective womaniser who has no interest in committing to any of the women who have touched his life as he philanders around Los Angeles. Quite what any of these women could ever see in this man is beyond me, but he seems to have them hooked and that’s the excuse auteur Alan Rudolph uses to take us on a trip through his dirty linen, and boy is it absurd. Peppered by full-scale and over-produced ballads - complete with on-screen orchestra, we follow a series of uninteresting peccadilloes that bamboozle all the more because the likes of Harvey Keitel - his dad’s factotum; Geraldine Chaplin, Lauren Hutton and Sissy Spacek have given this house-room. The latter of these household names stands out, I suppose, but she and her feather duster aren’t really here anywhere near enough to give this meandering exercise in familial discord and self-indulgence any real sense of purpose. Bed-hopping can be a fun basis for a film if it’s a comedy or if there is some depth to the story and/or the characterisations, but here it is if we are being presented with some amateur revolving-stage histrionics designed to alienate and disinterest us rather than engage. Who cares what happens to any of them? I didn’t, sorry.