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Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I would put this in the same category as "London", with Jessica Biel. It will graphically and painfully remind most people of someone they loved and lost. It's the kind of movie to watch when you are already feeling down due to a break-up, or when you kind of want to feel that way or remember a girl / guy you who you once loved. This is also a pretty good coming-of-age story. Laura Linney, playing the lead's mother, delivers advice I will never forget about people begging you to be weak but really wanting you to be strong. Still, the love story and heartbreak is the most powerful thing in it, to me. I look forward to more movies from Ethan Hawke.

Ethan Hawke pulls off nothing short of a one-man cinematic tour de force in "The Hottest State," a movie he wrote, directed and briefly appears in. And to top it off, it's based on his own novel.This low-budget film chronicles the rocky relationship between a struggling Manhattan actor and a beautiful young woman from Connecticut who's come to the city to start a new life for herself as a singer. Originally hailing from Texas, William Harding is not the most ambitious or highly motivated young man when it comes to pursuing his goals or the most monogamous when it comes to his relationships with women, but all that changes when he meets Sarah, "the girl of his dreams." She makes him want to become a better, more stable person, but Sarah has other things on her mind than getting tied down in a relationship, so she essentially keeps William at arm's-length, allowing him only so far into her heart before shutting him out completely. Meanwhile, blindsided by love, William can't seem to figure out why the girl he's ready to devote his entire life to pleasing seems hell-bent on sabotaging their relationship. And, yet ironically, the more aggressively he pursues her, the more he winds up pushing her away.Thanks to extraordinarily perceptive writing and acting, "The Hottest State" rises far above the average Hollywood romance - its characters more recognizable and complex and its situations more believable and true to life. Both William and Sarah bring a certain amount of baggage with them from their childhoods and previous relationships, but, for the most part, they are just two fairly ordinary young people feeling their way through life, trying to make a go of it as a couple, with all the pain, pleasure and confusion that that entails. And if their demons occasionally get the better of them, well heck, that's all a part of this game we call love as well."The Hottest State" is really an examination of what happens when one half of a romantic couple falls out of love with the other half, leaving the latter no outlet through which to channel that still-smoldering obsession. The movie nicely turns the situation on its head by making it the woman, rather than the man, who's having trouble making the commitment. There are times when both these characters can be maddeningly frustrating to watch, and when, frankly, neither of them is all that sympathetic or likable. But that's merely an indication of just how utterly committed the movie is to the truth of its characters and story - and how highly it respects and values the intelligence and maturity of its audience.Mark Webber and Catalina Sandino Moreno are simply astounding in their portrayal of two people trying to come to terms with how each one feels about the other, and they are beautifully complemented by Hawke, Laura Linney and Michele Williams in supporting roles. The final confrontation scene between William and Hawke, playing the dad who abandoned him when he was thirteen years old, is searing in what it has to say about the devastating effect an absent parent can have on the psyche of a rejected child - and how that effect can continue on throughout the entirety of that child's life.Buoyed by an ending that refuses to cater to generic formulas or the expectations of its audience, "The Hottest State" is a heartbreaking story about heartbreak.

I've liked Hawke as an actor but didn't go into this film with high expectations. I was surprised at how competently this was made. While it covers fairly safe territory - a romantic drama - it does it with nice visuals and some originality. The protagonist William (Mark Webber) is a bit of a slacker, yet he was introspective enough to try to resolve some of his own issues when his lover Sarah (Catalina Sandino Moreno) splits and leaves him broken-hearted. The fact that this was tackled from the male perspective, and grappled with some psychological insight gave the film some gravitas. Mind you, how deeply a twenty-one year old can delve into his psyche is another thing.I found the film quite enjoyable, more than superficial, but still largely in the "middle-of-the-road" category - not that that's a bad thing. The cinematography was great, and there were nice camera angles. The music was nice but sometimes a little intrusive. While it's the type of film that's likely to do well at Sundance (maybe it has, I don't know), it's a lot better than the quirky comedies like Little Miss Sunshine et al. This film could do well on general release and was an OK film to add some variation to my MIFF viewings, but nothing to rave about. A good effort by Hawke (who is also a guest speaker at the festival).

The Hottest State is the story of William, played by Mark Webber (Storytelling), an up and coming young actor in New York City who meets the unassuming Sarah, played by Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), one night at a local bar. There's an immediate attraction. As he walks her home that night and pulls out a cigarette she tells him not to smoke. "Why?" he asks, curious. She answers "Because I might want to kiss you." William is nervous, emotional and bracingly honest. Sarah, who has just moved from Connecticut to pursue her dreams of being a singer, is quiet, emotionally reserved and detached. As they get closer, his growing excitement is matched by her growing fears.After a hypnotic and sexually charged week together in Mexico, William stays to film a movie while Sarah returns to New York. When William gets back he immediately senses something is not right. Sarah becomes distant and increasingly annoyed at William's attention. Soon the bomb is dropped. "I came to New York to be free." It is the beginning of the end.Already scarred by his estranged father (played by Ethan Hawke) who left him when he was just a boy and unable to reason with losing the one good thing in his life, William begins a tragic descent into desperation and despair. His behavior becomes increasingly chaotic and manic, climaxing with one of the most uncomfortable answering machine message scenes the screen has seen since Swingers.The Hottest State is a story of first love and heartbreak but it's also the story of a wounded young boy searching for a father he never knew. Both Webber and Moreno have a unique and intense chemistry that quickly builds and falls while Hawke does a masterful job of letting his actors control each frame.