CHRIS KNIPP'S SFIFF COVERAGE ON FILMLEAF HERE.

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STEPHEN BARKER TURNER AND HEATHER GORDON IN SEDUCING CHARLIE PARKER

How can you know so much and so little at the same time?

In this witty little social comedy Charlie, an out of work New York actor who lives with (and off) his successful TV producer wife, falls into a downward spiral when he becomes involved with Clea, an air-headed but tempting blonde recently arrived from Ohio. What results provides a sharp portrait of the ways and wiles of show biz in the Big Apple and the moral choices some personalities are more comfortable with than others. This second feature by Glazer, who is a San Francisco Bay area theater director and drama teacher, is adapted from the play by the same name by Theresa Rebeck whose 2007 production at the Second Stage Theater in New York was very favorably reviewed by Charles Isherwood in the Times. The film has two of the main virtues of a good play -- sharp dialogue and well-structured scenes. But on screen, without the energy of live actors and a live audience, the effect of the material is somewhat brittle and slight.

Charlie (Stephen Barker Turner) is at a party given by Nick, an old college friend, a producer who could give him an acting job, when he's distracted by Clea (Heather Gordon), whose riff on an interview she recently had with a TV producer turns out to be making fun of his wife. No matter that Clea is superficial, cruel, stupid, and a little crazy. She is pretty, or at least sexy, or at least stylish. Well, at least she's outspoken, blonde, and, as certainly becomes clear later, highly sexed. She's a little pretty, a little sexy, a little stylish. She's also young, attractive, and very toxic. She babbles on annoyingly in the vernacular of a high school girl, but with those looks and that delivery, the men's sneers keep morphing into leers. The grumpy, hard-to-please Charlie and his best friend Lew (David Wilson Barnes), also on hand at the party to meet and ogle her, are equally disgusted and aroused by Clea. Clea's remarks are dumb and vapid, but there's something arresting about the things she says. "How can you know so much and so little at the same time?" Charlie says to her later. Charlie winds up ignoring Nick, possibly missing a chance to act in his new pilot.

Stella (Daphne Zuniga), who is everything Clea isn't, wise, mature, accomplished, sensible (and who wants to adopt a Chinese baby, a move Clea has mocked at the party), is disapproving of Charlie's allergy to job hunting, but she carries him indulgently. Or would do. Except that after running into Clea at Lew's just when the latter is putting the make on her Charlie plunges into an increasingly risky affair with the young woman, even to having sex at his own apartment. Stella comes in on them, and is appalled, but again would be indulgent. Except that the baldfaced Clea, whose mouth never stops moving, begins talking for Charlie, insisting to Stella that he's bored with her -- and Charlie allows this to be said and goes off later to a party Clea's attending. Charlie's rejection of Stella is a dangerous, economically fatal move. And needless to say the treacherous and selfish Clea will not keep him for long.

It's interesting that this playwright and the director are female and the story concerns a young women who is such a demon. She is a classic seductress, existing for Charlie only to take him to bed and ruin his marriage and his life. Lew calls her a "succubus." And if Clea is the perfect vagina dentata, Charlie is a perfect victim for her to use and throw away. He lacks the seriousness of motivation to resist Clea or the resources to survive her damage. Stella, on the other hand, is almost perfectly good, wise, and nice -- and probably ultimately better looking too -- and it's no surprise that Lew has always desired her and moves in when Charlies leaves her. The film/play defines each of its characters to leave no edge of doubt. They have little nuance and less ambiguity. But this makes for sharp, witty dialogue and a neatly constructed play. (The film works well enough on screen but feels unmistakeably like a play from the start.)

Seducing Charlie Parker depicts its characters as both symptoms of and victims of the moral laxity and soullessness of the society they inhabit. In the film, the action moves outdoors toward the end. I'm not sure how it differs from the play (which I have only read about) in this respect. Charlie seems to have been given a second chance, in the film. But his rescue also seems on a moment's reflection to be both ironic and provisional.

The New York production starred Tony Shalhoub, an older, plainer, grumpier, frumpier man than Stephen Barker Turner, as Charlie. The latter not only seems closer in age to the 20-something Clea, but retains a certain dash even when he's become utterly down and out. The cast members are actors whose experience has been more in TV than film. The only thing wrong with the film is that there's not much to it, a quality underlined by an O. Henry-style ending that makes it seem even smaller and less ambitious.

Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival 2010. Also included in the Cannes Independent Film Festival, the Method Fest (Calabasas, California) , and the Geneva Festival (Illinois) all in May 2010, Seducing Charlie Parker seems destined for an active festival life, if not a commercial one.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.