Cast

James Franco, Catherine Keener, Fallon Goodson, David Strathairn, Alan Cumming, Ken Scott, Mary Beth Peil

Film description

In this psychodrama set in 1963 with designer interiors and costumes, James (James Franco) is a TV actor who abandons that ignoble craft in favor of becoming a writer. Although he hears voices, his shaving cream evokes anxiety and only the dial-tone comforts him, such things never broke a creative career. In any case, he’s not the only eccentric around. He lives with a female artiste who loves donning men’s oversize suits and a Goth sister who might have just escaped from the set of Beetlejuice. This allusion-filled and brash film by multimedia artist Carter is, to some extent, a consequence of his Erased James Franco – an experiment in which the actor recreates all his prior roles. In Maladies, the screen belongs primarily to Franco, who evidently intends to become a living work of conceptual art.

Prepared by: Ewa Szabłowska