Ivansxtc [Blu-ray]

Ivansxtc Blu-ray delivers a savage, drug-fuelled satire of Hollywood power and excess from director Bernard Rose. Opening with the death of its titular antihero, ivansxtc rewinds to chart the final days of Ivan Beckman, a hot-shot Los Angeles talent agent whose relentless wheeling and dealing masks a deep moral emptiness. When Ivan receives a devastating cancer diagnosis, his carefully constructed world of money, influence and indulgence begins to collapse.

Loosely inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ivansxtc Blu-ray transplants the classic meditation on mortality into the glossy, corrosive heart of the film industry. Danny Huston delivers a ferocious central performance, supported by a memorably sleazy turn from Peter Weller as Ivan’s biggest client and Lisa Enos as the emotional counterweight to his self-destruction. By confronting life, death and conscience head-on, ivansxtc stands as one of the most caustic and introspective portraits of Hollywood ever put to film.

directed by: Bernard Rose
starring: Danny Huston, Peter Weller, Lisa Enos, Adam Krentzman
2000 / 92 min