Burning Palms (film)

Premise

The film explores satires of Angeleno stereotypes, which are told through five interlacing stories. The five intertwining segments are based on popular stereotypes of West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Westwood and Holmby Hills. Each of the characters in the film confronts taboos and an uncertain, often darkly humorous, fate. Producer Oren Segal likens the film to "a John Waters version of Short Cuts", a 1993 drama film directed by Robert Altman.

Plot

Dedra Davenport (Rosamund Pike) meets Chloe, the 15-year-old daughter (Emily Meade) of her fiancé Dennis (Dylan McDermott) for the very first time. However, she is soon disturbed by how close father and daughter are, committing suicide by cutting her veins just like Chloe's mother, feeling herself shut out and betrayed by the unhealthy close and bordering on incestuous relationship between the two.

Ginny Bai (Jamie Chung) agrees to participate in an unconventional sex act with her boyfriend Chad Bower (Robert Hoffman). Soon after she begins to slowly lose her mind when she cannot seem to get rid of an odd smell from her finger.

A rich and well-recognized West Hollywood gay couple (Peter Macdissi and Anson Mount) decide to adopt a seven-year-old African girl (Tiara McKinney). They prove to be mentally unprepared for the challenges and risks involved in parenthood, especially since she is a decided mute who refuses to speak to them.

A nanny (Lake Bell) for a group of neglected children comes to find some dangerous secrets about the live-in staff at their mansion home.

An unidentified man (Nick Stahl) breaks into the apartment of meek woman Sarah Cotton (Zoe Saldana), and rapes her. Sometime later she finds the man's wallet and is able to track him down and approaches him, wanting him to rape her again.

Cast

Production

Palms was scripted by Christopher B. Landon, who also wrote the 2007 thriller Disturbia. Palms will also mark Landon's directorial debut.

Media outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter and TV Guide reported that the ensemble-driven indie feature will star Shannen Doherty and Dylan McDermott as well as Zoe Saldana, Lake Bell, Nick Stahl, Paz Vega, Adriana Barraza, Colleen Camp, Jamie Chung, Robert Hoffman, Peter Macdissi, Emily Meade, Anson Mount, Rosamund Pike, Austin Williams, Chandler George Brown, and Tom Wright.

The film was shot in Los Angeles, California and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Oren Segal, Steven Prince and Jason Hewitt produced the film, and Tyler Thompson, Vince Morella and Naz Jafri were executive producers.

Critical response

To date, the critical reception for the film has been largely negative. One critic described the film as being "one of the most offensive movies I’ve seen in the past decade", going on to say:

Andrew Schenker of Slant magazine gave the film just half of one star out of a possible four. Writing of the film:

Gabe Callahan, of Poptimal.com, pointed out his theories as to why the film was such a disappointment:

Peter Debruge also denounced the film in Variety:

The film currently only holds a 33% rating on Metacritic, and a 29% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.