A young man living in Paris scratches out a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike, dancing on the streets, public parks, tourist spots and trade shows. During a show in an old people's home, he meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. Haunted by her angelic beauty, he follows her to a commune in the Scottish Highlands, joining her husband Charlie Chaplin, and her daughter Shirley Temple. Here, the Pope, Elizabeth II, Madonna, James Dean, and other impersonators build a stage in the hope that the world will visit and watch them perform. A subplot concerns a convent of nuns, in what seems to be a developing country. One of the nuns survives a fall from an airplane during a mission to deliver food to villages, and discovers that if you are true of heart, God will protect you. All the nuns then begin jumping from planes to show they are true of heart and protected by God.
Korine conceived of a film about impersonators as a way to explore what he called "the obsessive nature" of the impersonator personality. Rather than mocking or belittling impersonation, Korine claims to have felt a "fondness and empathy" for impersonators since childhood. Korine came up with the idea for the film after the release of Julien Donkey-Boy, but his drug use and general disillusionment prolonged the process. In a February 2007 interview with Screen International, he said: "I'd been making movies since I was virtually a kid, and it had always come very easily. At a certain point after the last movie, I started to have this general disconnect from things. I was really miserable with where I was. I began to lose sight of things and people started to become more and more distant. I was burnt out, movies were what I always loved in life and I started to not care. I went deeper and deeper into a dark place and to be honest movies were the last thing I was thinking about – I didn't know if I was going to be alive. My dream was to evaporate. I was unhealthy. Whatever happened during that time, and I won't go into the details, maybe it was something I needed to go through." In a 2003 interview with the New York Post, former girlfriend Chloë Sevigny revealed that the formerly straight edge Korine had become addicted to heroin and methadone while they were together, with Korine's substance abuse issues contributing to the end of their relationship. Richard Strange, who plays Abraham Lincoln, claimed that Korine often changed scenes and lines as filming progressed.
Production
While shooting the commune scenes, the cast and crew lived together in a Scottish castle, and many of the actors remained in their impersonated characters for all or part of the time they were off-camera. Actor Denis Lavant even bathed with his shoes on, as his impersonated character Charlie Chaplin was said to do. To film the secondary storyline, Korine worked with real skydiving nuns from Spain, sometimes in temperatures of 48 °C.
The movie also features "13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed" by A Silver Mt. Zion and Bobby Vinton's "Mr. Lonely", though neither song is included on the soundtrack. The Maid Freed From the Gallows by John Jacob Niles. My Life by Iris Dement.
Reception
Korine's largest film to date with a budget of $8.2 million, Mister Lonely earned $386,915 in its first nine months — $167,396 in the United States and $219,519 in other territories. The film received mixed to negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film maintains a 46% approval, with one reviewer commenting, "Less biting or offensive than Korine's earlier works, this frustratingly dull film still maintains the director's trademark odd beauty."
