Leading Lady

Director Henk Pretorius ("Fanie Fourie's Lobola" SIFF's 2013 Best Film) brings us another entry from South Africa (English captions when needed) for the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival.

We watch as a struggling actress recruits a South African farmer to help her prepare for a "last chance" audition. He is understandably skeptical because "Brits only come for something, and when they get it, they go."

Here is part of the cast:

• Katie McGrath ("Merlin") is Jodi, an idealistic drama teacher who desperately wants to play an Afrikaans war heroine in a soon-to- be shot major motion picture. Miss McGrath should find a film in which she plays Keira Knightley's sister; they bear a strong resemblance!
• Bok van Blerk is Kobus, a cynical South African sheep farmer who is mostly concerned about lack of rain and the woman who left him at the altar.
• Gil Bellows makes his Daniel a challenge to stomach. I can see his parody of American film directors, but this is too, too silly.

All I can say is "Too predictable, too trite, and too manipulative, made worse by lame acting. It is contrived and illogical, consequently it triggered a "second act sneak" during which press screeners quietly slipped out of the theater.

I stayed for all 96 minutes so you wouldn't have to...