''A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III'' is a 2012 American
comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
written, directed, and produced by
Roman Coppola
Roman François Coppola (born April 22, 1965) is an American director, screenwriter, producer and the son of Francis Ford Coppola and Eleanor Coppola. For the 2012 film ''Moonrise Kingdom'', he and co-writer Wes Anderson were nominated for the ...
. It stars
Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as ''Platoon'' (1986), ''Wall Street'' (1987), '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' The Rookie'' (1990), ''The Thr ...
,
Jason Schwartzman
Jason Francesco Schwartzman (born June 26, 1980) is an American actor and musician.
Schwartzman made his film debut in Wes Anderson's 1998 film '' Rushmore'', and has gone on to appear in six other Anderson films: '' The Darjeeling Limited'' (2 ...
,
Bill Murray
William James Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan delivery. He rose to fame on ''The National Lampoon Radio Hour'' (1973–1974) before becoming a national presence on '' Saturday Nig ...
,
Katheryn Winnick and
Patricia Arquette
Patricia Tiffany Arquette (born April 8, 1968) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987). Her other notable films include '' True Romance'' (1993), ''Ed W ...
.
It premiered at the 2012
Rome Film Festival
International Rome Film Fest is a film festival that takes place in Rome during the month of October. The name in Italian is Festa del Cinema di Roma.
Sections
The Rome Film Festival official program is divided into several sections:
Cinema d'O ...
and had a
limited release on February 8, 2013 in the United States, being the first release under the independent distributor,
A24
A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. It is based in New York City.
A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges. Pr ...
. Since its release, it has garnered a largely negative reception.
Plot
In the 1970s, successful graphic designer and ladies' man Charles Swan III (Sheen) is dumped by his girlfriend Ivana (Winnick), and it throws his life into a tailspin.
He does not know whether he loves her or hates her or wants her back or never wants to see her again.
Along with his best friend, Kirby (Schwartzman) and his manager, Saul (Murray), Charles starts to suffer from nightmares, fever dreams of past relationships and hits rock bottom as he tries to recover from the recent breakup and tries to turn his life around.
Cast
*
Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as ''Platoon'' (1986), ''Wall Street'' (1987), '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' The Rookie'' (1990), ''The Thr ...
as Charles Swan the III
*
Jason Schwartzman
Jason Francesco Schwartzman (born June 26, 1980) is an American actor and musician.
Schwartzman made his film debut in Wes Anderson's 1998 film '' Rushmore'', and has gone on to appear in six other Anderson films: '' The Darjeeling Limited'' (2 ...
as Kirby Star
*
Bill Murray
William James Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan delivery. He rose to fame on ''The National Lampoon Radio Hour'' (1973–1974) before becoming a national presence on '' Saturday Nig ...
as Saul
*
Katheryn Winnick as Ivana
*
Patricia Arquette
Patricia Tiffany Arquette (born April 8, 1968) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987). Her other notable films include '' True Romance'' (1993), ''Ed W ...
as Izzy, Charles' sister
*
Aubrey Plaza
Aubrey Christina Plaza (born June 26, 1984) is an American actress, comedian, and producer. She began her career performing improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. She starred as April Ludgate on the NBC sitcom ''Pa ...
as Marnie
*
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Mary Elizabeth Winstead (born November 28, 1984) is an American actress and singer. Her first significant role was that of Jessica Bennett on the NBC soap opera ''Passions'' (1999–2000). She went on to appear in series such as ''Tru Calling' ...
as Kate
*
Dermot Mulroney as Doctor
*
Richard Edson
Richard Edson (born January 1, 1954) is an American actor and musician.
Personal life
Edson was born in New Rochelle, New York to a Jewish family. He has one brother, Steven, who resides in the Boston area, and two sisters, Andrea, who resides ...
as Sanchez
*
Stephen Dorff
Stephen Hartley Dorff Jr. (born July 29, 1973) is an American actor. He is known for portraying Roland West in the third season of HBO's crime drama anthology series ''True Detective'', PK in '' The Power of One'', Stuart Sutcliffe in ''Back ...
as Stephen
*C.C. Sheffield as Secretary
*
Angela Lindvall as Veiled Woman
*
Tyne Stecklein as Penny
*Lindsey McLevis as Lindsey
*
Lexy Hulme
Alexandra Nicole Hulme, also known as Lexy Hulme, is an American actress, dancer, choreographer and artist. She is known for her work with Lawrie Brewster and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Select filmography Film
* ''(500) Days of Summer'' (2009, dance ...
as Yvonne
*
Fabianne Therese
Fabianne Therese Gstottenmayr is a Sri-Lankan American actress and director known for starring in several successful independent films including Netflix's '' Teenage Cocktail'' (2016), '' John Dies at the End'' (2012), Anchor Bay's '' The Aggress ...
as Kirby Star's Girlfriend
*
Bar Paly
Bar Paly; born Varvara Paley, is an Israeli-American actress and model.
Early life
Paly was born Varvara Alexandrovna Paley in 1985, in Nizhny Tagil, Russia (former USSR), to Olga (née Dnrob) and Alexander Paley. Her grandfathers served in ...
as Maria Carla
*Margarita Kallas as Josephine
*
Maxine Bahns
Maxine Lee Bahns (born February 28, 1971) is an American actress, triathlete, and model. She is best known for roles in the films ''The Brothers McMullen'' and '' She's the One'', appearing in both as the love interest of her then-boyfriend, E ...
as Mom
*
Alim Kouliev
Alim Kaisynovich Kouliev (born June 24, 1959) is a Soviet-born American actor, theatre director, and screenwriter of Balkar origin. Kouliev was born in Nalchik — a small city in USSR. His father was the Balkar poet Kaisyn Kuliev and his mothe ...
as Russian Cabbie
*
Liam Hayes as Himself
Production
Roman Coppalla began devolpment on the film in 2004.
Filmed on location in
Santa Clarita
Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-largest city by population in Los Angeles County, the 17t ...
and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, California.
Music
"It was surreal", says the Chicago composer and performer
Liam Hayes, about appearing in the Roman Coppola film ''A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III''. "I haven't played many gigs on a beach with a Hammond organ, you know?" Hayes, who has made music under the name Plush since the early 1990s, was contacted by Coppola after the director became a huge fan. "I just got so absorbed by his music", Coppola told ''
GQ'' (UK) about Hayes and Plush.
The result of this appreciation was Hayes and Coppola making a soundtrack out of Hayes' music. "It evolved", says Hayes. "When we met to discuss the project we talked about possible songs. We talked some more, added a few more songs, and I ended up doing the score." Hayes also appears in the film performing the tune "So Much Music". It is not his first time onscreen: In 2000 he appeared in ''
High Fidelity'' performing his song "Soaring and Boring".
Release
First premiered at the
Rome Film Festival
International Rome Film Fest is a film festival that takes place in Rome during the month of October. The name in Italian is Festa del Cinema di Roma.
Sections
The Rome Film Festival official program is divided into several sections:
Cinema d'O ...
in November 2012.
On January 8, 2013, the film was released through
video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...
and was released in a
limited release in the United States on February 8, 2013.
Home media
It was released on
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
and DVD on May 14, 2013 in North America.
Reception
Critical response
''A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III'' received an overwhelmingly negative response from critics. Nathan Rabin of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' gave the movie an F, saying that "it isn't a movie so much as a feature-length perfume commercial for a Charlie Sheen signature cologne with gorgeous packaging and absolutely nothing inside." The ''
Dallas Observer
''Dallas Observer'' is a free digital and print publication based in Dallas, Texas. The ''Observer'' publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music, and arts, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circ ...
'' said that the film "might generously be described as cut-and-paste – or more accurately as 'throw stuff to the wall and see what sticks'" and it was "a clunker". ''
The New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in t ...
'' gave ''Charles Swan III'' one star out of five, saying that "you want to swat it away" and that "maybe with this out of his
oppola'ssystem, he'll think up something better." ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' said that the film "does not lead to a deeper understanding of Charlie Sheen. It does, however, demonstrate his compulsion for poor judgment and bad choices. But weren't we already convinced of that?"
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum (born July 5, 1952) is an American film critic. She joined ''Entertainment Weekly'' as a film critic in the 1990s and remained there until February 2013.
Career
She has been featured on CNN, co-hosted '' Siskel & Ebert at the Mov ...
, reviewer for ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...
'', gave the film a C and a milder response, writing, "The idea of this home-movie-with-higher-production-values directed by Roman Coppola is no less sweet for being unoriginal ... The execution, on the other hand, is perilously self-absorbed, a private party involving friends, family, too many fantasy sequences, and an abundance of costume and set design to create a notion of a stylized L.A. spritzed with eau de ''Playboy''."
The film holds a 16% "rotten" rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, based on 56 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Tiresomely self-indulgent and lacking any storytelling cohesion, this ''Glimpse Inside the Mind'' finds little food for thought."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
gave the film a 28/100 "generally unfavorable" approval rating based on 22 reviews.
Box office
The film opened at #64 with US$12,000 in its limited release at two theaters the week of February 8.
The following weekend, the weekend of February 15, ''Charles Swan III'' expanded to 18 theaters and gained an 81.6% increase.
As of July 11, 2013, the domestic total of ''A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III'' is US$45,350, and in Russia the film has grossed $134,473, with an additional $26,999 in Mexico.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan Iii
Films directed by Roman Coppola
2012 comedy films
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films set in the 1970s
2012 films
Films with screenplays by Roman Coppola
A24 (company) films
American comedy films
American Zoetrope films
Films scored by Roger Neill
2010s English-language films
2010s American films