Like the Mafia, Hollywood looks after its own. So it's no surprise that this documentary on Robert Evans turns his crash-and-burn story into the Second Coming of '70s cinema. Narrated by Evans himself, The Kid Stays In The Picture follows the actor-turned-producer through his tenure as Tinseltown's golden boy when he oversaw pictures like Rosemary's Baby, Love Story and Chinatown. Then his hectic cocaine abuse took its toll...
Treating their subject like a celebrity god, directors Brett Morgen and Nanette Burstein throw objectivity to the wind and create a gorgeous kaleidoscope of real footage, movie clips and animated photographs. Evans' scratched voice and cocksure swagger are hypnotic and he tells some hilarious anecdotes. (On first seeing The Godfather, Evans went mad, telling director Francis Ford Coppola to re-cut it and make it longer. "You shot a saga, pal, but you turned in a trailer!")
Yet despite the razzle-dazzle, it's obvious that Evans is one of Hollywood's biggest bullshitters, laying it on with a Beverly Hills-sized trowel.
