Daryl Hannah is so adept at playing spacy little cupcakes that it's hard to discern at first whether she's doing anything new or challenging in "Dancing at the Blue Iguana". Her character, Angel--as with ALL the characters in the film--is half-realized and indifferently treated by the director, yet Hannah pulls off one amazing moment in the movie: Angel is almost arrested by a friendly cop who stops to take her picture but finds marijuana in her car. It's just a throwaway moment for the filmmakers, who don't allow the sequence to lead anywhere, but Daryl is dead-on here in her impersonation of a child-like waif who seems to make a conscious decision to use her ditzy naivete to her advantage. She broke my heart! Also good: Sandra Oh as would-be poetess Jasmine and Jennifer Tilly as a hard-partying stripper who roars through her day until she's out of gas. The film rambles, it has no shape, it has many embarrassing and/or awkward moments, and it's filled with disgusting language. But there are some thoughtful, sad passages that strive to "reveal" something about the seamy side of life which maybe we as moviegoers might not have seen before. I found something like "Smithereens" to be more truthful, but I did find "Iguana" to be intriguing on a minor level. ** from ****
Review of Dancing at the Blue Iguana
