by MATTHEW HAYS

Frances McDormand lords over Laurel Canyon, the latest directorial effort from out lesbian director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art). It's not that the other actors in the cast - including Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale and Allesandro Nivola - aren't solid (they are), but McDormand is just so damn good as to risk eclipsing everyone else.

Here, she plays a free-living, free-loving, fortysomething music producer, living in the heart of the amoral heartland, California (on Laurel Canyon street). Her son, an anal medical intern (Bale) returns to Hollywood to complete the final stages of becoming a doctor; in tow is his bookwormish fiancée (Beckinsale), a doctoral student working towards completing her dissertation on the reproductive life of a species of insect.

Cholodenko's characters and their various psychological makeups become a wee bit too obvious here, but despite that complaint, they're no less fun to watch unravel. Bale has spent his entire life trying to react to mom's unbelievably laid-back approach to everything. She's toking, she's sleeping with a much younger musician (Nivola) and Bale is simply horrified. Thus he's taken up with a gal from an upright, uptight family, hell bent on becoming as middle-American and un-Californian as is humanly possible. McDormand, of course, can't understand any of this straight-laced-ness, and responds to it herself.

There is a clear and concentrated tension running between characters (and throughout the film) and it's to Cholodenko's credit that she managed to pull all of this together. Laurel Canyon glows brightest when characters begin to pursue their various forbidden sexual options (the best configuration would be a sin to give away here). The filmmaker takes clear delight in shifting her characters along in these directions - a delight she lets her audience in on, fully and completely.

The only drawback here is that, for all her atmosphere and fully fleshed-out characters, Cholodenko clearly didn't quite know how to bring Laurel Canyon to its final moments. It's a pity, really, because other than that, this is a wonderful character movie. See it for McDormand's marvellous turn alone.

Laurel Canyon opens Friday, April 18

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