Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

The frequently shallow world of television is rarely captured on film in a believable or credible way. I'm not talking about the network news world, which actually has been profiled quite nicely in a few movies. I'm talking about the arena that pits network execs against the artists who make and star in prime time shows. Drawing from his failed attempts to turn his 1998 cult hit ZERO EFFECT into a network series, writer-director Jake Kasdan has created one of the finest insider looks at the chipping away of the soul that comes when a writer gets the opportunity to get a pilot made. It would have been very easy for Kasdan and his talented group of actors to go overboard with this material, but his commitment to keeping these events as genuine and sometimes dark as possible make it a great work.

A bearded David Duchovny plays Mike Klein, who has written what appears to be a winning pilot script based on his life dealing with the suicide death of his brother. On paper, "The Wexler Chronicles" is a drama with a few laughs and a lot of heart. The network president of PDN (a fictional fifth national network) is Lenny (played with a winning thoughtlessness by Sigourney Weaver), an exec without a creative bone in her body and who runs all of her pilots and programming decisions past her 14-year-old daughter. The network has recently brought in Richard (Ioan Gruffudd) from the BBC to add a little class to the new fall lineup. He loves Mike's script and defends it to a point from any attempts at changing crucial plot elements by the network. But Mike doesn't pay Richard's salary, and he is under enormous pressure to craft shows that will fortify the network.

Almost from day one, Mike's decisions about any creative element to the show are challenged, beginning with casting and culminating in an on-set decision to eliminate the suicide angle to the lead character's story altogether. Those that are supposed to be on his side don't even back him, especially his manager Alice (the lovely Judy Greer), who seems more interested in appeasing the network than fighting for her client. Meanwhile, the show is having the added trouble of having its leading actor (Fran Kranz) fall for the lead actress (Lindsay Sloane), who rejects him, thus causing tension on the set. Mike's health begins to suffer, as does his relationship with his very pregnant wife (Justine Bateman). Both are torn between their desperate need for a steady income and Mike's artistic integrity.

I'd love to believe that THE TV SET is a wild exaggeration, but I suspect it's not. And I understand that Kasdan's portrayal of the film's writer character as the only pure and good thing in the production is a little biased. But that doesn't stop the film from being poignant, hilarious, and biting. Kasdan has turned his hatred of the networks into a work of art, and transformed his criticism of the current system into a beautifully bitter manifesto. Perhaps the most surprising turn comes from Gruffudd (Fantastic Four's Mr. Fantastic), who is the one character whose life is the most transformed by these events and whose dignity suffers the greatest fatalities. I have no idea whether "Zero Effect" the TV show would have been any good, but if Kasdan suffered even a fraction of the indignities on display here, he's lucky to walk away with his sanity. In the long run, I'm glad the show never made it on air, if only because the experienced inspired him to write this near-perfect film.

Capone