Tagline: They Know Each Other By Heart.
Having achieved success as a NY model, Brier (Pell James) decides to move to L.A. to launch an acting career. With the support of her acerbic agent and sometimes surrogate mom, Carrie (Carrie Fisher), Brier lands a spot in a highly sought after acting class where she befriends another would-be actress, Clea (Ashley Simpson).
While out on the town discovering the music scene, Brier again crosses paths with Luke (Strait), a singer / songwriter who has been toiling for years without a record deal. Brier and Clea decide to help Luke and unbeknownst to him, they set out to create some L.A. style hype to get him noticed. As Luke’s profile rises, so do the demands of his budding new career. When Luke and Brier can’t hide the spark that was always there, they both discover that the price of fame may be higher than anyone expected.
Undiscovered is a 2005 film directed by Meiert Avis. The plot is about a group of aspiring entertainers who intend to establish their careers in Los Angeles. Released on August 26, 2005, the film received a largely negative reception, holding an 8% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 73 reviews. The film also had the record for largest percentage drop-off in ticket sales from its opening weekend to its second weekend in theatrical release, 86.4%, until it was broken by Collide in March 2017.
Film Review for Undiscovered
“Welcome to L.A.” is the slap-in-the-face greeting model-turned-actress Brier Tucket (Pell James) receives upon her arrival in the city of broken dreams, a moment that more than faintly recalls Ryan Atwood’s first impression of Newport Beach during the opening episode of The O.C. FOX’s teen soap opera and Undiscovered are both torturously clichéd productions of the same script, but if the former’s distillation of California New Rich materialism is pleasantly buoyant, Meiert Avis’s directorial debut—and excellent candidate for Worst Movie of the Year—is suffocatingly self-serious.
After a romantic first encounter inside New York City’s subway system, Brier and singer-songwriter Luke Falcon (Steven Strait) serendipitously cross paths again after they’ve both moved to the West Coast in hope of fulfilling their ambitions—and where, inevitably, they will overcome the perils of fame and a lack of creativity (not to be confused with this romantic comedy’s airport chase ending). Only a studio producer could love Undiscovered‘s ridiculously hot struggling artists, who videotape each other in the subway Rent-style, say things like “bitch-slapped” and “news flash,” and eat at dingy cafes that serve breakfast all day.
Other than Kip Pardue and Peter Weller as a charming over-the-hill record exec, the entire cast is subdued to the point of indifference; which is all the more awkward when the actors are forced to dish lines like Luke’s climactic love howl, “You didn’t just hurt me. You killed me.” It would be easier to write off Undiscovered as a committee picture conceived by studio hacks if it weren’t for its distracting direction.
Avis, known better as a maker of music videos, aggressively layers every sequence with pop singles and confuses poor camera focus and colored lighting for aesthetic flair. It goes without saying that these fictional talents waiting to be spotted are as hackneyed as the film itself. A record label suit says about one of Luke’s Coldplay-lite performances, “This guy sings from his heart. It makes me sick.” I couldn’t agree more.
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Undiscovered (2005)
Directed by: Meiert Avis
Starring: Pell James, Kip Pardue, Ashlee Simpson, Shannyn Sossamon, Carrie Fisher, Stephen Moyer, Fisher Stevens, Perrey Reeves, Melissa Lawner, Peter Weller, Mann Alfonso
Screenplay by: John Galt
Production Design by: Philip Duffin
Cinematography by: Danny Hiele
Film Editing by: David Codron
Costume Design by: Jennifer Rade
Set Decoration by: Lisa Tong
Art Direction by: Austin Gorg
Music by: David Baerwald
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual material including dialogue, partial nudity, language and drug content
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: August 26, 2005
Visits: 53
