Directed by Harmony Korine. With Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, James Fox and Melita Morgan. Distributed by IFC First Take. 1 hour, 52 mins. No MPAA rating (adult themes). Playing at:
Ritz at the Bourse.
Harmony Korine's oddball Mister Lonely is about people who have chosen to "be" other people: The title character (Diego Luna) is a Michael Jackson impersonator who moonwalks on the streets of Paris, dressed in full regalia. Passersby stop, smile, occasionally toss him money.
Then "Michael" visits a cafe and meets "Marilyn" - as in Marilyn Monroe - a mopey impersonator played with all-too-much earnestness by Samantha Morton. The would-be sex bomb tells the ersatz King of Pop about her commune in the Scottish highlands: an old manor inhabited exclusively by impersonators. Her husband, a Charlie Chaplin lookalike (kind of), is one. Other members of this strange sect include a man who acts like Abe Lincoln, another who pretends to be the pope, a Sammy Davis Jr. mimic, a Madonna wannabe, and James Dean and Little Red Riding Hood studies, too.
