‘Goldmine’: Meaningful Look at Nihilist

There’s never been a film made by a member of the second generation of a prominent Hollywood filmmaking family quite like Josh Evans’ compelling and determinedly uncompromising “Inside the Goldmine,” a most harrowing depiction of affluent young people adrift in Los Angeles.

A work of rigorous simplicity and economy, it is assured and mature, especially for a first film. Clearly Evans, the son of producer Robert Evans and actress Ali MacGraw, has not only looked at the world around him but deep inside himself. This is not to imply that the film is autobiographical--OK, so you do wonder--but to suggest that this is the kind of film that could be made only by someone prepared to strive for self-knowledge.

Evans casts Alan Marshall as Jordan Dalgren, the likable, pleasant-looking son of a famous producer, and himself as Clyde, his darkly handsome best pal, a corrosive nihilist who insists he believes in nothing. There’s a recklessness, a brazen amorality, about Clyde that attracts the uncertain Jordan, who comes across as a nice guy who has some vague notion of trying to find some direction in his life.

Just as we’re wondering how Clyde is going to impact upon Jordan, they are riding in the hills of Laurel Canyon when Jordan slows down, curious about a cluster of police cars. Disregarding Clyde’s sensible advice to just keep on going, Jordan ends up getting himself interviewed by a TV reporter. It suffices to say that their lives are forever changed.

It says a lot for Evans’ control and detachment that his film has an easy elegance and a swift pace even though he directs actors much like John Cassavetes, going for a spontaneous, improvised quality, although Evans may well do no more improvising than Cassavetes did himself.

Evans went for quality right down the line: You have the feeling that cinematographer Fernando Arguelles has captured precisely what Evans wanted, and Robin Le Mesurier’s shimmery score enhances moods perfectly. There are two particularly sharp, sadly funny scenes with Jordan and his producer father (Gary Chazan, terrific), in which the father emerges as crude, though not uncaring, but cursed with a near-total inability to listen to his troubled son. (It’s a characteristic hardly limited to rich and famous parents.)

Marshall and the poised, beautiful Alicia Tully Jensen as the latest girl in Clyde’s life are both impressive, but Evans at the end gives his film to himself, in a long, fully sustained climactic scene in which we discover that peering into the void that Clyde insists life to be has not really led to the embittered cool he affects but rather a torment terrible to behold.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film has some sex and nudity, discussions of sex and violence and especially strong language.

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‘Inside the Goldmine’

Alan Marshall: Jordan Dalgren

Josh Evans: Clyde Daye

Alicia Tully Jensen: Emily

Gary Chazan: Sid Dalgren

A Dove International release of a Cineville/Hugh Pedy presentation in association Keystone Studios. Director Josh Evans. Producer Adam Stern. Executive producers Hugh Pedy and Uri Zighelboim. Screenplay by Evans and Zighelboim. Cinematographer Fernando Arguelles. Editor Nabil Mechi. Costumes Karen Perry. Music Robin Le Mesurier. Production designer Karen Hasse. Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex for one week, 345 S. Figueroa St., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-0268.