The Hottest State

Could be an overwrought mess if it were in less capable hands. But Webber and Moreno are so good, it's hard to believe they're not really deeply and meaningfully in lust.

It's nothing new, but Hawke captures some evocative textures and honest moments.

Hawke has created a standard-issue, Sundance-friendly indie film that's full of the predictable angst suffered by Manhattan artistic types, but unfortunately the lead characters are both so callow that you finally don't care much about them.

At around the halfway point, its characters’ haranguing voices begin to grate on you. People in their early 20s, even pretty people, lose their appeal when they dwell this obsessively on their own inchoate turmoil.

Patchy lead perfs and mannered helming subtract value from pic's tangible plus points (solid supporting turns, pleasant score).

When Laura Linney turns up about an hour into The Hottest State, you can see the movie that might have been.

Whatever you're imagining -- self-serving self-awareness; unedited hipster mopes; yammering dear-diary script -- The Hottest State, Ethan Hawke's bathetic tale of a good-looking young actor's first heartbreak, is far worse.