Actors can be difficult to work with, but none more so than fading western star Howard Spence (Shepard) who just upped and left the set of his latest movie without a word.
After swapping clothes with an old drifter and ditching his phone and credit cards, Howie heads off to visit the dear old mum he hasn't seen in ages (Eva Marie Saint).
She disapproves of Howard's ways. Strangely, that hasn't stopped her compiling a huge scrapbook of his bad-boy shenanigans over the years. Not feeling particularly ashamed by his tabloid history, Howard gets drunk.
Shepard the screenwriter then sits his character down with Mum for a lesson in how not to introduce the rest of the plot.
On hearing that he has a grown-up son, Howard has an attack of conscience (though it could be boredom) and returns to the Montana town where he left waitress Doreen (Lange) in the family way.
"Where've you been? You just fell off the face of the Earth" says Doreen, evidently too busy in her empty diner to keep up with her celebrity exes in the national press.
Their son is Earl (Gabriel Mann), a surly musician with a skanky girlfriend (Fairuza Balk) who, on meeting his father, over-reacts something rotten and throws his toys out of the cot (or, more specifically, out of the apartment).
Howard is greeted more serenely by Sky (Sarah Polley), another result of a past fling. Sadly, he can't make peace with Sky's momma as she's just ashes in an urn.
Meanwhile, through Gestapo-like diligence and sundry contrivances, the studio's prissy English insurance man (Roth) closes in on Howard with a briefcase full of movie contracts.
Can a carefree leopard like Howard change his spots? Will he make peace with his children? Will he ever get off that sofa in the middle of the road? Frankly, who cares?
For a movie about accepting responsibility, Shepard and director Wenders don't live up to theirs: namely, keeping us entertained.
This is dry and dusty stuff which doesn't satisfactorily solve or resolve anything. And it fails to produce a single surprise.
Elliott Noble
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