REVIEWS FOR ELLIE PARKER“Two Thump Upâ€
-Ebert and Robert At the movies
"A sharp exposé of the bilious undercurrents running beneath Hollywood's candy-coloured surface, ELLIE PARKER is a fizzy and hugely entertaining debut."
Edward Lawrenson SIGHT AND SOUND
“Writer-director-costar Scott Coffey, a tart comic mind.†Entertainment Weekly
“Ellie Parker" is a funny, fractured valentine… Ellie Parker is at once
hilarious and harrowing, and in being so, seems right on target. There's an honesty, as painful as it is comical, about Ellie and her story that lingers long after the lights go up.â€
– Kevin Thomas Los Angles Times
"Ellie Parker" is a good movie, fearless and true, observant and merciless.â€
"Ellie Parker," a daring and truthful film by Scott Coffeyâ€
-Roger EbertEbert Rating: ***
"Ellie Parker" is the sharpest, most authentic portrait of Hollywood life made in the last several years… a tightly structured comedy. What makes this movie work, both as satire and as pathos, is the obvious intimacy and trust between director and actorâ€
-Andrew O’Hehir Salon
“ELLIE PARKER is a bitingly raw comedy about the travails of making it in Hollywood. Watts is extraordinary throughout, but the opening sequence – which finds Ellie auditioning for the role of a wailing Southern belle, then getting into her car and driving through L.A. while changing clothes, talking on her cell phone, and rehearsing lines for and audition as a tough-talking New York hooker – is a tour de force.
-John Powers NPR and Vogue Magazine.
“…laughs, warts-and-all insight and a knockout lead performance.†BBC
The script is superb, combining jet black comedy with sharply observed and all too believable insights into what it's like to be a struggling actress in L.A. It's also heartbreakingly sad in places. Ellie Parker is a thoroughly enjoyable film with a terrific performance from Naomi Watts and a superb supporting cast. The London View
“This is a witty film, with the superficiality and cruelty of LA standing as metaphor This lovely, funny film creates a truly memorable character. An amazing performance from Watts shows why she is no longer a struggling actress herself.†Channel 4 UK
This fun, scattershot Hollywood spoof by writer-director Scott Coffey – Ella Taylor LA Weekly
Few films have made such good use of DV, with its grainy shadows highlighting Watts' many contrasts beautifully. Flavorpill NY
Naomi Watts is ferociously good in an astute little comedy about the misadventures of a self-involved, scatterbrained actress from Australia who’s trying to make it in Hollywood. Shot in a faux cinema verite style, the film is knowing about what it takes to fake it ‘til you make it.Three out of four stars.
-People Magazine
The acting is so fresh and convincing that
it is virtually impossible to determine what’s
been written and what’s been improvised. The striking sense
of immediacy that permeates the film. It has a strange, beautiful sense of melancholy.
- WALTER SALLES FILMMAKER