Naomi Watts glows, even in low-watt 'Ellie Parker'

"Let me in," struggling actress Ellie Parker (Naomi Watts) pleads as she tries to change lanes in the unforgiving tangle of L.A. traffic.

It's the same plea she's been making to Hollywood for months — ever since transferring there from Australia.

Strand Releasing 'Ellie Parker' C+ The verdict: Trading one jungle (Skull Island) for another (Hollywood), Naomi Watts proves she's as brilliant in a no-budget film as she is in a zillion-dollar one. Director: Scott Coffey Starring: Naomi Watts, Rebecca Rigg, Scott Coffey, Mark Pellegrino, Blair Mastbaum (II), Chevy Chase Run time: 94 minutes Release date: Nov. 11, 2005 Rating: R for profanity and sexual situations. On the web View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Ellie Parker'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

"Ellie Parker" is about what it's like to be young, pretty, talented and shut out of the movie biz. Shuttling from audition to audition, changing accents and clothes in the car as she shows up as a Southern belle at one casting office, a crack whore at the next, Ellie lives a life of not-so-quiet humiliation as she tries to maintain her integrity, her decency and her sanity in an environment that values none of the above.

The film started as a 16-minute short at Sundance in 2001. In the ensuing years, Watts went from nobody to Somebody, yet she continued to get together with writer-director Scott Coffey to film bits and pieces of Ellie's story — rather like Orson Welles shooting "Othello" whenever he had a little money.

Made on a shoestring budget that's probably less than what it cost to shoot a minute of "King Kong," the picture looks cheap and feels stretched. Feels familiar, too, as the briefly-glimpsed movie marquees sporting the titles "Play It As It Lays" and "The Day of the Locust" remind us. Hollywood's an easy target and "Ellie Parker" doesn't always hit the bull's-eye.

Still, Coffey knows the territory — from the auditions where the most important thing about Ellie is she must be shorter than the leading man to the acting classes where the students do ludicrous animal exercises in case they ever get cast as a lemur. At one point, Ellie and her friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress, hold a contest to see who can cry first: Ellie's Method vs. Sam's technique.

Chevy Chase contributes an amusing cameo as Ellie's agent, who doesn't try to change her mind (to her chagrin) when she says she's going to quit. And Coffey himself shows up as a potential new boyfriend, the old one (Mark Pellegrino) having proved his utter worthlessness by sleeping with a casting agent Ellie is trying to impress.

There are two good reasons to see "Ellie Parker." One is to spend time with the incandescent Watts, who quivers with the eagerness and desperation of a Chekov heroine. Filmed in extreme close-up and unflattering low-budget lighting, she gives a vanity-free performance — as willing to show us Ellie's self-absorption as she is her determination.

The other reason to see the movie is if you've got a starstruck daughter who thinks being an actress is the most glamorous thing in the world. In which case, see it several times. Dozens of times. And take her with you.

Then buy it when it comes out on DVD.