Perception

This should be funny or sad, but it's neither, in this incoherent cross between "Riding the Bus With My Sister" and a Christina Ricci vehicle.

Schwartz throws in so many characters and implausible subplots - none worth mentioning - that Perception sinks under its own weight.

As the jaundiced, disjointed, drug-infested story heads toward its dismal conclusion, its reputable actors vainly struggle to infuse the goings-on with a deadpan psychotic zaniness. But even when viewed sideways, Perception is not funny; it's hardly anything at all.

An early and daunting contender for worst movie of the year, writer-director Irving Schwartz's amateurish melodrama stars a hollow-eyed Piper Perabo as a self-loathing young woman who has every reason to hate herself.