Miss Lovely

Like “Boogie Nights,” Miss Lovely offers a visually stunning evocation of a disreputable subculture, although it lacks that pic’s rooting dramatic interest.

Rife with jealousy, treachery, and violence, it's a stylish portrait of the tangled relationship between cinematic and real-world sleaze.

An explosion of images, mixing seedy, hand-held reality with groovy grindhouse imitations. Most of the shots are vivid, some are even thrilling.

Ahluwalia has striven for a very self-consciously arty aesthetic here, more Gus Van Sant than Michael Mann. This is a commendably bold way to approach material that might otherwise have drifted into routine lowlife crime-thriller territory, but it also drains a rich story of narrative momentum and emotional punch.

Though not pretentious, his film feels a tad overthought, held back somehow by a stubborn, dour obscurity clouding its freshly realized, lurid milieu.

Ahluwalia’s commitment to accurately capturing the era’s aesthetic almost compensates for his failure to mine a good story from a great setting.

The women of the film certainly deserve better, as they're often relegated to the role of victim, harmed or murdered simply to propel the plot along.