Product Details

• Actors: Sonia Braga, Daniel Ross, Jesse Harris, Mark Webber, Catalina Sandino Moreno
• Directors: Ethan Hawke
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: VELOCITY / THINKFILM
• DVD Release Date: December 4, 2007
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000URDE8S
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,972 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

At first glance, Ethan Hawke's follow-up to Chelsea Walls is the ballad of a self-absorbed actor and an enigmatic singer. Below the surface, things are more complicated. An adaptation of his 1996 novel, The Hottest State feels more like an exorcism than a love story. Twenty-year-old William (Mark Webber, Broken Flowers), a Texan based in New York, falls for Sarah (Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace) moments after meeting her. In an instant, they've shacked up together, but she refuses to sleep with him. When he lands a job in Mexico, she agrees to come along, and they finally consummate their relationship. After that, though, she starts to withdraw. The more she moves away, the more desperate William becomes. As depictions of young love go, this one is more painful to watch than most, not because the acting is bad--the cast includes Hawke as William's father, Laura Linney as his mother, and Sonia Braga as Sarah's mother--but because a little William goes a long way. Aside from his anger control issues, he never stops talking. The entire story feels heavily autobiographical, down to William bragging to Sarah that he's a great actor. Assuming the young Hawke was just as boorish, the unvarnished honesty of his portrayal is to be commended. No doubt the writing of the book and directing of the film has helped him to move on, but that doesn't make The Hottest State comfortable viewing--though Jesse Harris's tuneful soundtrack helps to smooth the way. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

Days before his 21st birthday, William, a young actor, meets Sara, a seductive singer/songwriter. William quickly falls madly in love with Sara and embarks on a journey that takes him from a Lower East Side tenement to a Mexican hotel room and through the emotional extremities of passion, rage, and need. Yearning for someone to love him back, William's journey forces him to come to terms with his own past and the father he barely knows.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hawke Shoots From the Heart, December 10, 2007

By	Jason Horsley "Jason" (London) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Written and directed by Ethan Hawke, and based on Hawke's (I presume) autobiographical novel of the same name, The Hottest State is an intensely personal movie. Yet unlike, say, Woody Allen's autobiographical films (Annie Hall, Stardust Memories, Husbands and Wives), Hawke's personality doesn't flood his material. Hawke is quite casual about baring his soul to us, and audiences may not be aware how deeply he takes them into his psyche. But he holds nothing back.

The film recounts a brief, magical love affair between 20-year-old William (Mark Webber), Texas-born living in New York, and Sara (Catalina Sandino Moreno), a beautiful Mexican who has moved to the city to pursue her singing career. The film unfolds with an easy, natural spontaneity that is both engaging and faintly ominous (we know where it's heading because William informs us in voice-over). Working with his actors and crew, Hawke uses simple, unassuming brush strokes to communicate the joy and misery, and the complexity, of falling in love. William's trouble is that he has fallen in love with "a force of evil," which is to say, with unfathomable femininity.

The Hottest State shows the futility of romantic desire without ever opting for self-pity or easy cynicism. Hawke imbues the film with the wisdom and acceptance of a broken heart made stronger and freer by the breakage. Hawke's film gets at something universal, and cuts all the way to the bone. As a result, it may stir feelings we'd rather not have to deal with, ones we'd hoped we'd put to rest. I don't think I have ever seen a romantic film that manages to be this painful without being in the least bit sentimental. It's not so much about the sadness of watching a great love die, but about the horror and incomprehensibility of it.

Although it's raw and almost nakedly personal, there's nothing amateurish about the film. Hawke's handling of his actors is flawless, and just about every scene resonates, rings bells of recognition. In scene after scene, Hawke seems to have got precisely what he was after. His use of the soundtrack (songs by Jesse Harris), free-form editing, overlapping scenes, voice-over, the rich, sensuous colors and his knack for placing the camera just where it needs to be, all is remarkably assured, making this probably the most auspicious debut from a writer-director since Sean Penn's Indian Runner. The Hottest State is a wonderful film and I felt richer for having seen it; and it deserves a wider audience, because so far as I know it did little business and got luke-warm notices. Another precious gem in danger of slipping under the radar.

The film is a little soft around the edges. Some of the dialogue (particularly between William and his mother, played by Laura Linney, and in the crucial scene with William's father, played by Hawke) may be a little too pat. We're aware of Hawke's limitations as a writer here, of his putting words into the characters' mouths instead of letting them speak for themselves (which is the problem with Sara's last few scenes). But considering what Hawke is attempting here--adapting his own novel, directing it, and playing a key role--it's an astonishingly assured work.

Like Penn, Hawke has an authentic artistic sensibility, and with any luck he could become a major filmmaker. He's so confident of getting to the truth of a scene that he achieves poetry without trying, without even a whiff of pretension. The film has a raw honesty to it, and yet it never seems self-indulgent or narcissistic. It's confessional in the best sense. It's as if getting these experiences down (in the novel, which I haven't read, and by making the film) was essential for Hawke's peace of mind, as if by sharing his pain and confusion with us, he was able to come to terms with the past and reduce its hold over him. As a result, the film has urgency and poignancy, it feels essential, from the heart. I can't think of another film that conveys the agony of heartbreak and the rite of passage it entails as effectively as this. It has its very own ache.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Talky, Self Indulgent Film Despite a Fine Cast, December 7, 2007

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Ethan Hawke wrote the book THE HOTTEST STATE and then proceeded to write the screenplay, direct and act in it. Sometimes that combination works, but in this instance the whole project feels like a narcissistic self-indulgent autobiographical talky two hours. Hawke is respected enough among his peers that he was able to draw a fine cast together in an attempt to make this film work, but in the end it is pretty boring.

Young Texas actor William (Mark Webber) has moved to New York to make it big, and while he gets jobs, he feels as though he doesn't have a handle on relationships. When he meets the beautiful singer Sarah (Catalina Sandino Moreno) he falls in love but has no idea how to court his dream girl. Sarah is cautious about relationships, too, yet is attracted to William and consents to travel to Mexico to heat up their bonding. In Mexico they spend the greater part of their time consummating their love affair: the love scenes are fairly erotic, especially on the part of Moreno. Returning to their jobs in New York the two face problems in continuing their relationship. William's divorced parents (Laura Linney and Ethan Hawke) have their own demons that prevent their providing William with much consolation, and Sarah's mother (Sonia Braga) has a rather negative view of relationships. How the film finally winds down with dealing with William's whining and Sarah's resistance is all that is left of the lengthy diatribe.

Though Linney, Braga, Michelle Williams (in too short a role), and Moreno try to make this story tolerable, it is inherent in the concept that William (Ethan Hawke poorly disguised) is just too boring a guy to care about. Mark Webber is supposed to have the promise and charisma of a 'new Brando' (according to the hype), but he is flat in this film. The soundtrack is wearing and rarely takes a break for the dialog. Hawke can and has done better. Hopefully he has released his ego in this film and can move on. Grady Harp, December 07

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars one of my favorites, February 6, 2008

By	Sarah Himmelreich (PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of my favorite movies. The cast is stellar and it has a great soundtrack. Beyond that, it is one of the most "real" love stories I have ever seen in a movie. You can very easily see yourself in the shoes of the characters.