Ellie Parker

Ellie Parker is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Scott Coffey. It stars Naomi Watts in the title role, a young woman struggling as an actress in Los Angeles. Ellie Parker began as a short film that was screened at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Using a handheld digital camera, writer-director Scott Coffey expanded it into a feature-length film at various times over the next four years. It was finally released in 2005.

Ellie Parker
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Scott Coffey
Written by	Scott Coffey
Produced by	Scott Coffey Naomi Watts
Starring	Naomi Watts Rebecca Rigg Scott Coffey Mark Pellegrino Chevy Chase
Cinematography	Scott Coffey Blair Mastbaum
Edited by	Matt Chesse
Music by	Neil Jackson BC Smith
Production companies	Strand Releasing Kailua Productions
Distributed by	Dream Entertainment Strand Releasing
Release dates	November 11, 2005 (2005-11-11) (United States; limited)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$4 million[1]
Box office	$45,726[2]

Plot

Ellie Parker is the story of an Australian actress struggling to make it in Hollywood. Ellie is young enough to still go to auditions back and forth across Los Angeles, changing wardrobes and slapping on makeup en route, but just old enough that the future feels "more like a threat than a promise". She lives with her vacuous musician boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino), who leaves her just about as dissatisfied as any other part of her life, and has a loose definition of the word "fidelity". Helping make sense of their surreal and humiliating Hollywood existence is her best friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress trying her hand at design, who attends acting classes with Ellie to stay sharp. When Ellie gets into a fender bender with a guy who claims he is a cinematographer (Scott Coffey), her perspective on her work and the dating world starts to change. Chevy Chase also makes an appearance playing Ellie's agent.

Cast

• Naomi Watts as Ellie Parker
• Rebecca Rigg as Sam
• Scott Coffey as Chris
• Mark Pellegrino as Justin
• Chevy Chase as Dennis Swartzbaum
• Jennifer Syme as Casting Chick
• Jessicka as Acting Class Student
• Keanu Reeves as Dogstar bassist (himself)

Production

Watts, Coffey, and Pellegrino all worked together on David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, where Watts had her breakout performance, and Ellie Parker grew out of the friendship forged between Watts and director and screenwriter Coffey. It was shot on digital video over the course of five years, having begun its life as a series of shorts featuring Watts' character.^{[citation needed]}

The film centers on a quote from the prologue to William Shakespeare's Henry V:

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 52% of 48 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Despite some poignant commentary about struggling actors and Naomi Watts' inspired performance, Ellie Parker stutters in making the transition from short to feature length."^[3] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 51 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[4]