Documentary Movie: Hollywood Complex
Here we have a documentary movie that feels like watching a train wreck, a tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The movie is not the problem, the problem is the real people who are in it. Yet I found the movie so interesting, to get inside the heads of these parents and to see this Hollywood machine in action. I felt guilty for watching the movie as I was rivoted and couldn't help but talk to the TV set trying to talk some common sense into these starry eyed parents.
Hollywood Complex is about an apartment complex that caters to usually temporary short term rents for families from around the USA to come and live during the several months of pilot season. Usually one parent comes with the child who is going to auditions to try to be cast in a pilot to become a Hollywood star. It is not just an apartment complex though, it is a business where the parents are lectured to about the ins and outs of the system and where people try to boost them up to think this is actually a possiblity for their child. Many businesses cater to these wanna-be stars including acting coaches and head shot photographers.
By immersing in a micro-culture these families actually feed off each other, boosting each other up and thinking they really have a shot at breaking into the business. It is like an unhealthy co-dependent relationship in action.
I was especially confused and perplexed by the people who chose to stay long term, running up credit card debt in the many tens of thousands of dollars and those who are there year after year with no real progress to show for it. The family who has been there multiple years with no job found was the worst of them all. The mother said she felt that if the girl had a dream it was hear job to try to fulfill that dream even if it put the family in deep financial debt and split the family up across states for years.
Statistics are given in the movie to show how slim the odds are to actually be cast in a role and to become a Hollywood child star. I felt that some of these businesses were the least ethical I'd ever seen, preying on the dreams and hopes of little kids. If the parents were wealthy and had the money to burn it wouldn't bother me so much but to hear the stories of the debt they incurred was sickening and seemed nonsensical to me.
Not everyone can or will be a Hollwood star. Period.