Today’s casting notice comes (to me at least) also as an announcement of a very weird film’s existence: a movie directed by Roman Coppola, starring Charlie Sheen, and based on a story that has more than a few obvious real-world parallels.
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III will also now star Aubrey Plaza as a woman who works with Sheen’s title character at a famous graphic design firm he owns. It’s not clear if she’ll be one of the many romantic interests for the main character, but the story does have him involved with a number of women as he deals with a very Charlie Sheen-like bout of fame and fortune that goes to his head.
Also like Sheen, he’s brought very suddenly back down to earth (in the film by a breakup) and must resolve to get himself together. I can see Plaza fitting well into this dynamic, as she’s got a very no-nonsense way of holding herself that would contrast well with the type of women I would expect Sheen’s character to usually be keeping company with.
Up there I mentioned Charlie Sheen’s “Beaver picture” because it’s hard not to see this in much the same way many saw Mel Gibson’s turn in The Beaver (though most of Mel’s recent antics happened after that film was shot). Even if the film only ends up being thematically autobiographic (like The Beaver), people like to make a big deal about actors working out their demons on screen. In the case of Foster’s film, which is quite a flawed movie, that resulted in a great big whoosh of air when nobody actually came to see it.
I would suspect Charlie Swan has a better shot at getting eyeballs though. It’s not that Roman Coppola (son of Francis) is a more crowd-drawing director than Jodie Foster of course, but rather that Charlie Sheen’s breakdown had a much more publicly entertaining circus element to it, as opposed to Mel Gibson’s very ugly issues that stoked the gossip mill in a different way. Regardless, whether Charlie Swan will end up making any kind of an impact is tough to call, since it’s a small indie film and could as easily come and go with barely a word as catch headlines and become a commodity.
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Source | Variety (via Dark Horizons)