Play It As It Lays paints a stark picture of disjunction and entrapment in modern culture by focusing on the nucleus of that culture, contemporary Hollywood. Here, the dominant model for artistic and personal expression is the advertisement; the physical environment grates like incessant static; and the tokens of plenty - cars, houses, clothes, pools, and lovers - add up to far less than the sum of their material parts. Tuesday Weld won the Venice Film Festival Best Actress award for her portrayal of Maria, a beautiful and wealthy actress and ex-model whose life story is told in a series of incisive vignettes. Anthony Perkins is also excellent as the cynical but sympathetic BZ, a homosexual movie producer and Maria's only friend. Skillfully adapted from Joan Didion's novel by Didion and husband John Gregory Dunne, Play It As It Lays is a film as memorable for its sharp dialogue as for the provocative interpretation by director Frank Perry. Perry is well versed in the filmic interplay of reality, fantasy, and insanity (he directed David and Lisa and Diary of a Mad Housewife), and here narrates Maria's story on multiple levels, via jump cuts, intercuts, and flashbacks. (JB)