Loren & Rose Review: Talking about Hollywood

Loren & Rose is a trite conversation about Old Hollywood and movie stars despite the radiant appearance of Jacqueline Bisset.

Throughout history, many filmmakers have produced countless movies about life in the film industry. What could a filmmaker understand better than what it takes to make a movie? Many have been good, such as Sunset Boulevard and the Bisset-starring Day for Night. Many more have been bad.

Cinema is well-trodden, well-worn territory, and, unfortunately, Loren & Rose fails to add anything to the conversation. The titular characters don’t really grow beyond archetypes, and the insights on the film industry might only prove interesting to someone who has never before read an interview with an actress. 

The movie is built around the presence of Jacqueline Bisset. As an actress, Bisset began working in the 1960s, and quickly gained fame as a “thinking man’s sex symbol,” with her delicate features, British accent, and appearances in horror movies and exploitation melodramas. To today’s cinephiles, she is probably best known for her roles in François Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973) and Claude Chabrol’s La Cérémonie (1995), for which she was nominated for a César Award. In Loren & Rose, Bisset makes for a charming and captivating raconteur, tossing off humorous stories about life in Hollywood. One does not get the sense that she is from deep within herself to develop the performance, it’s far too light, but her history gives the character a sense of believability. This was a true movie star. 

Rose Martins (Bisset) broke onto the Hollywood scene with the lead role in 1972’s controversial Lisa Overnight in which she starred as a nun who has an affair with a black man. She went on to have a steady career but the tabloids fixation on her personal life overshadowed her acting ability and in present day is best known for her role in Mega Gators Mom. In the twilight of her career, Martins published a scathing book decrying Hollywood’s treatment of aging actresses. She has quietly faded from public view, rumors abounding that she joined a spiritual cult. None of this information is shown on-screen, instead it is relayed through voice-over. 

Loren Bressher (Kelly Blantz) is a pretentious, ambitious filmmaker flush with the success of a well-regarded short film. He is a fan of Martins’s work and hopes to get her to star in his first feature movie. Rose is revitalized by the chance at a meaty role after many tumultuous decades.  They have a lunch meeting at Martins’s favorite restaurant and over the years develop what we are meant to infer as a close friendship.  Loren & Rose comprises three meals that they share, chaptered by twee title cards, during which Rose imparts well-earned wisdom, and Loren shares his vast knowledge of her career and Old Hollywood gossip. 

For such a dialogue-heavy work, having a strong screenplay is imperative, and unfortunately Loren & Rose does not have one. The dialogue is stilted, filled with faux platitudes and vapid bon mots such as Roses “Duck is the one animal I can’t eat, because I made a film with one. He was the most gentle co-star.” It mistakes being able to recite trivia facts as deep conversation concerning cinema. I don’t believe that an actress such as Rose would be particularly charmed by Loren having seen one of her films. The quality of the dialogue is all the more apparent due to the spare, unnatural sound design. The noise in the restaurant never rises above a low clang. 

Loren & Rose sets out to imagine what it would be like to sit across the restaurant table from one of your idols. That, right there, is its limitation. Loren, and by extension, Brown cannot conceive of Rose outside of her movie career and tabloid rumors. Bisset is a radiant screen presence, but she is done a disservice by the myopic quality of the writing. Rose is only an icon, a goddess of the silver screen stepping down to tell Loren how wonderful his work is going. I’m not sure if Loren & Rose would satisfy even a Bisset superfan.

Loren & Rose will be available to stream on Prime Video from January 28, 2025.