The New Age

Peter Witner (Weller) quits his mega-salaried job as a Los Angeles copywriter at the same time that his wife Katherine (Davis), a graphic designer, loses a major account. Their marriage on the rocks, the couple follow the advice of a New Age guru (Bauchau) and stake everything on opening a super-luxurious shop, 'Hip-ocracy'. Though filled with its fair share of diverting ideas, Tolkin's film seems half-seduced by the surfaces it attempts to penetrate. Cinematographer John F Campbell ably captures the ritzy, elegant, but unrewarding milieu of art-bedecked apartments, Petronius-like SM clubs, and spiritual retreats, and Weller and Davis suggest well the psychological panic and brittle suffering, respectively, of these two emblematic victims of modern American materialism. As a moral fable, however, it loses its way, chiefly due to the use of heavy-handed symbolism and an unenlightening play with confusing psycho-sexual ideas of opposing male-female principles. A brave stab, nevertheless, with a finely executed finale as Peter sets about his ironic salvation.