by Graham Fuller

The tale of a naive gumshoe with a unique line in malapropisms, Alan Rudolph's screwball comedy noir wants to have its cake and two in the bush. Trixie is, in other words, a contradiction in terms that doesn't quite succeed, despite Emily Watson's pleasing performance in her first American lead, a scenery-chewing one by Nick Nolte, and a clutch of likeable supporting turns.

Although writer-director Rudolph, who knows his Chandleresquerie, creates a palpable atmosphere of cocktail-hour seediness in the resort-town where mid-Westerner Trixie takes a job in a lakeside casino, the movie never knows whether it wants to make us laugh or sweat. Trixie witnesses some perverse chicanery involving Senator Avery (Nolte), corrupt developer Red Rafferty (Will Patton), his addled lounge-singer girlfriend Dawn (Lesley Ann Warren), and his inept lackey Dex (Dermot Mulroney). Dawn turns up dead shortly after and Trixie enlists casino entertainer Kirk (Nathan Lane) and sultry barfly Ruby (scene-stealing Brittany Murphy) to help her nail the killer.

Immersed in a world driven by ruinous sexual transactions, the repressed Trixie learns a life lesson or two, but her education doesn't come at the expense of her purity. It's worth sticking around to see how she deals with the final twist in this serpentine tale--even if, at times, it seems neither she nor we will ever get there.

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