Force Majeure

Bruce Wagner is a screenwriter and director with a swirling disturbing perception of the subworld that is Hollywoodland. When writing the seminal though hardly remembered techrevolution packaged as a TV miniseries, Wild Palms, he locked himself away in the old 20s glamour haunt, the Chateau Marmont friend William Gibson has reported, and filled the room with books - not to read, but just to inspire or invoke in the darn thing. I think there were probably a lot of candles too.Force Majeure is somewhat more contemporary than the near future world of Wild Palms, but it is spilling over with the same mundane paranoia that seeps through Hollywood. Bud Wiggins, a Willy Loman as screenwriter bumps and stumbles through a world and narrative that is part Day of the Locusts, part Terry Southern's Blue Movie. You feel like there's always a conspiracy around the corner, but its only showbiz. Force Majeure whips together trippyness, struggle, pop, and pornography in a way that makes me think of Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers, though the books are not similar otherwise.Finally, this is a portrait of Hollywood. There's a beginning rule of screenwriting that says Hollywood is the only place where you can make a living on failure. And that's if you're really lucky. Force Majeure embodies that notion.