All I Want Movie Review

This one lost me. A bizarre concoction of Wonder Boys, Spanking the Monkey, Singles, and, I dunno, Moulin Rouge, this film obviously confused the hell out of its studio to the point where they couldn't give it a real release, despite having Frodo himself (Elijah Wood) in the starring role and pop starlet Mandy Moore at his side.

Here's the gist: Jones Dillon (Wood) is a college drop-out at age 17 (already?) and decides to "learn about life" by living in a kooky apartment house with kooky people in it. His neighbors include two chicks: Jane (Franka Potente), a pissy photographer, and Lisa (Moore), an aspiring actress. Who will Jones fall in love with? And more importantly, will this teach him that life is not really learned about through living in a kooky apartment complex? Hey, Jones likes to type an an old style typewriter and drink wine straight from the bottle, so we know he's serious. Isn't he?

The immaturity of the film's main character is matched by the immaturity of the film's script, a hodgepodge of elements stolen from other (better) movies and terrible jokes. Both of Wood's co-stars (with whom he has variously abortive affairs) tower over him, making for laughable romantic moments. The story is ultimately stillborn, failing to generate much sympathy as a coming-of-age tale and getting completely lost on the kissy-kissy front.

Director Jeffrey Porter and Charles Kephart previously collaborated on something called Train Quest. The shrug-worthy title All I Want (I still don't know what he wanted) used to be the even less explicable Try Seventeen. Alas, you could have called the movie Franka Potente Naked and it still wouldn't have made any difference in the end.