Undiscovered was a typical romance drama/coming-of-age film for 20-something's with no backbone or intrigue. I watched it for Shannyn Sossamon because she's played these great characters in the past with very little going on in their lives, but in this film, she's this Brazilian model-type who seems very much in the wrong film (the character does anyways).
I don't know what US Weekly was smoking when they proclaimed on the back of the DVD "Ashlee Simpson shines as a punky inspiring singer-actress." Simpson was basically playing a girl with no real depth and a horrible nasal voice. I do however believe in what the New York Post said about Pell James, that "(she) is adorable and winsome, she's a romantic star in the making." She might be a not-so-well-known actress, but she was a well cast lead girl for this film. But the main "dude," Steven Strait, is just a big baby with too much of his heart on his shoulder, and his knack for writing lame songs in the movie just puts the character in the ground.
I really only liked a few things about the movie. 1) Carrie Fisher. She hasn't been in a whole lot of films as of late, so it was good to see her as a lead role in the model/actress' career. 2) The chick fight in the Viper Room scene. That's always killer. And 3) The small joke about the main singer guy having arachnophobia (told by his agent at Tantra Records).
The rest of the film has been done before by better actors. There was boring music (which consisted of acoustic sets and U2 ripoff songs), a ridiculous back and forth love story which makes you want to turn the DVD off ahead of time, the dude acting like a baby through most of the film because he finds out that his contract was helped out by Brier (the main girl) and it wasn't because of his lame songs, and there was even a ridiculous chant that the Tantra Records' associates go into after deleting this guy from the label. I really didn't get the line when she calls up this musician guy and adds "I know. This is borderline stalking you." Hello? He's been obsessing about you the whole movie, not the other way around.
I had to give the film a 3/10. It was shot well, but their was no driving force that kept my attention to the screen without reminding me of how much of a cable TV movie this is. I hope this was just made to give Ashlee Simpson a film career because if the writer really felt depth in this script, I would start to lose hope in the future of film.
