Completing the thematic trilogy that began with 2001's Gerry and continued with 2003's Elephant, Gus Van Sant uses the 1994 suicide of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain to further explore death and loneliness. Michael Pitt, a rangy Cobain lookalike, portrays rocker-in-exile Blake as muttering and paranoid, stumbling around an unheated mansion and the adjacent woods in search of a release from his demons. For the most part we must simply accept that it's Blake's "genius" that attracts parasitic hangers-on like Scott Green and draws repeated requests for his return to the music-biz rat race, including one from his manager (Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon). But then two songs, written and played by Pitt, finally show the incoherent Blake communicating. Van Sant's use of long Steadicam shots, jarring sound design and his disjointed, repetitive, impressionistic style will irritate some, but haunt others. But his film certainly gets inside the head of its drug-addled protagonist and nails the boredom of fame.

The life and struggles of a notorious rock musician seeping into a pit of loneliness whose everyday life involves friends and family seeking financial aid and favors, inspired by rock music legend Kurt Cobain and his final hours.