Bret Easton Ellis's screenplay is filled with the worst kind of tin-eared dialogue and situations that seldom rise above their soapish base instincts, and in the third act, he clearly just gives up and turns one of his characters into Patrick Bateman.

| Jun 19, 2016

With the pungent combination of a script from novelist Bret Easton Ellis, a performance by Lindsay Lohan and direction by Paul Schrader, The Canyons might have been a micro-budget sensation, but sadly it reeks of laziness.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 23, 2014

Merely confirms Schrader as an all-but spent force (it's been largely downhill since the dismal Dominion) and nails Bret Easton Ellis as a one-trick pony.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 11, 2014

Although the movie is flawed, [Lohan's] pretty terrific ...

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2014

The Canyons deserves a look.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 8, 2014

Lindsay Lohan lights up the screen as a fallen starlet in Paul Schrader's much-maligned noir quickie.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 8, 2014

It believes it's taking risks it actually has no interest in taking, that it's seeing profundity in the showbiz shallows.

| Jan 3, 2014

A boring failure, for the most un-thrilling reasons imaginable: the characters don't ring true, the dialogue is heinous, and most of the cast can't act.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 31, 2013

Ellis throws in lots of references to social media in a desperate bid for cultural currency, while Schrader intersperses the drama with pretentious shots of boarded-up movie theaters to suggest this is all a metaphor for the death of cinema.

| Aug 15, 2013

"The Canyons" is one of those movies that makes you feel worse just for having watched it.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 15, 2013

If the creation of self-important tedium were a competitive sport, "The Canyons" would take home the gold.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 8, 2013

An inept, misanthropic melodrama written by novelist Bret Easton Ellis and funded mostly through a Kickstarter campaign.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 8, 2013

A tale of young, vapid, sexually insatiable Z-listers in Hollywood had the credentials to be deliciously awful fun but almost every time something tawdry (and potentially interesting) is about to happen, the film pulls its punches and leaves the action.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 8, 2013

The Canyons is inept and de-energizing, and Lindsay Lohan is enough to make you cry.

| Aug 7, 2013

The Canyons isn't just bad, it's rank - and it takes a peculiar sort of integrity to denude the frame of life to the point where it smells to heaven.

Full Review | Aug 2, 2013

Schrader just seems angry, as if he's using this film as a tinny megaphone for an announcement of his displeasure with a Hollywood that's left him behind.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Aug 2, 2013

You could put a lot of work into figuring out what's wrong here, but why bother? Pretty much everything's wrong.

| Original Score: D | Aug 2, 2013

As a visual symphony, "The Canyons" is often masterful, and while it may be pornographic in places, it's never campy.

| Aug 1, 2013

Despite its impressive pedigree and unorthodox methods, "The Canyons" is hopelessly thin, clumsy and dull.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 1, 2013

Those open to a chilly exploration of Hollywood anomie may be surprised at how compelling this tale of amoral showbiz outsiders often manages to be.

| Aug 1, 2013