Overrated and overhyped

Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

hyped garbage

A masterpiece.Thus it is, possibly, not for everyone.The camera work, acting, directing and everything else is unique, original, superb in every way - and very different from the trash we are sadly used to getting.Summer Phoenix creates a deep, believable and intriguing Esther Kahn. As everything else in this film, her acting is unique - it is completely her own - neither "British" nor "American" nor anything else I have ever seen. There is something mesmerizing about it.The lengthy, unbroken, natural shots are wonderful, reminding us that we have become too accustomed to a few restricted ways of shooting and editing.

This movie was one of the worst I've ever seen. Pure drivel. How anyone could develop a connection with the heroine, or have empathy for her, is beyond me. I felt I was watching a case history of a schizoid individual with borderline personality disorder. Just terrible.In its most generous light, this can be seen as an attempt at producing and "art" film - except I could not, for the life of me, find any art in it at all.If this woman had lived in todays' world, she would have been whisked off to a mental institution and given a couple of days treatment with anti-psychotic medications. That, or simply allowed to roam the streets and become a bag woman. Why other characters in this movie found anything redeeming in her - and tried to aid her in her quest to become an actress - speaks more to their pathology than any convincing characteristics she had that made her worth that effort.

Esther Kahn made me regret every second that I spent watching it and I wished I could have reversed my trip to the video store. I'm surprised I even made it through this seemingly bad trip to purgatory. How do films like this ever get the money to have one minute of it made? And how do actresses like Summer Phoenix get work?The characters were so boring and lifeless that I'm surprised the director stayed awake making it. I never felt any empathy or compassion towards Esther in her so-called plight towards trying to become an accomplished actress. Maybe Summer Phoenix should re-think her choice of being an actress as she was horrible. Also, listening to her Oliver Twist meets valley girl English accent was a joke.If this is what films are coming to, I'd rather spend my time doing laundry...at least it's more dynamic and exciting than Esther Kahn.

A shame that even a talented director, Desplechin, could not muster a decent performance out of a bleakly-talented actress, Phoenix, Esther Kahn lacks the substance to convey a very concise and clear plot. In an attempt to fulfill the concentric circle of an actor's plight, the performance and presentation is too contrived and poorly executed to draw any compassion from the viewer. In an overly long running time, the redundancy of Esther's struggle is too melodramatic to be effective and reduces the storyline into a frail frame of a disastrous display. The content is incoherent and gratuitous as Phoenix struggles to carry out Desplechin's instruction, just as Esther is supposedly trying to do the same. Never feeling a convincing victory over Esther's pain, we never feel a victory in Phoenix's talent.