''ivansxtc'' is a 2000 British-American independent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

co-written by Bernard Rose and Lisa Enos, produced by Enos and directed by Rose, the first of several Enos-Rose collaborations, including ''Snuff-Movie'' (2005), ''Kreutzer Sonata'' (2008) and ''Mr. Nice'' (2010). The film stars Danny Huston, Peter Weller, and Lisa Enos, with Rose and Enos' actual CAA agent, Adam Krentzmen, playing the role of fictional "Media Talent Agency" agent Barry Oaks. Other key roles include Morgan Walsh (Vukovic) as Lucy Lawrence, and '' SLC Punk'' director James Merendino as director Danny McTeague. The story follows a Hollywood agent, Ivan Beckman (Huston), who must force a smile and carry on with business as usual with the agency's biggest client, Don West (Weller), in the face of a cancer diagnosis. The film, loosely based on

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

's 1886 novella '' The Death of Ivan Ilyich'', was also inspired by the rise and fall of talent agent Jay Moloney.

Cast

* Danny Huston as Ivan Beckman, a successful film agent working in Los Angeles * Peter Weller as Don West, Beckman's client * Lisa Enos as Charlotte White * James Merendino as Danny McTeague * Adam Krentzman as Barry Oaks * Sarah Danielle Madison as Naomi *

Tiffani Thiessen Tiffani Amber Thiessen (born January 23, 1974) is an American actress. Her roles as List of Saved by the Bell characters#Kelly Kapowski, Kelly Kapowski on NBC's ''Saved by the Bell'' (1989–1993) and its Saved by the Bell#Spin-offs, spin-off me ...

as Marie Stein * Dan Ireland as Ted Zimblest * Lisa Henson as Margaret Mead * Hal Lieberman as Lloyd Hall * Valeria Golino as Constanza Vero * Angela Featherstone as Amanda Hill * Victoria Silvstedt as Melanie

Production

Filming took place in July 1999 in Sherman Oaks and Los Angeles, and was originally intended as a " Dogme 95" film in which the key collaborators (Enos, Rose, DP Ron Forstye, Production Coordinator Morgan Vukovic, etc.) would be credited as "The Filmmakers". It was shot at 60i fps on the Sony HDW-700A HD video format digital camera, which proved problematic for theatrical distribution.

Release

On its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film was ranked at #71, behind '' The Salton Sea'', ''

The Singles Ward ''The Singles Ward'' film series consists of two low-budget Mormon cinema, Mormon Comedy film, comedies based on original characters, co-written by Kurt Hale and John Moyer (comedian, screenwriter), John Moyer. The overall premise centers around ...

'' and a re-release of '' Beauty and the Beast''.

Reception

''Ivans Xtc'' received mostly positive reviews. On film aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, it holds a 77% rating, with an average score of 6.8/10, sampled from reviews from 30 critics. It scored a 67/100 (citing "generally favorable" reviews) on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, based on reviews from 14 critics.

Accolades

References

External links

* {{The Death of Ivan Ilyich Films based on The Death of Ivan Ilyich 2000 films British independent films American independent films 2000 drama films Films directed by Bernard Rose (director) Films about death Films with screenplays by Bernard Rose (director) 2000 independent films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2000s British films Rhino Films films English-language independent films