Ethan Hawke, in his feature directorial debut, has brought Nicolette Burdette's play to the screen with fluid grace and a perfect blend of dreaminess and grit, expressed in camerawork that seems to float and in Jeff Tweedy's shimmering, gently insistent score.

Movies like this do not grab you by the throat. You have to be receptive.

The cast is certainly impressive, and probably reason enough for seeing this.

Too freewheeling for its own good, like a Robert Altman ensemble piece without a gravitational core. But Hawke's actors are a talented troupe, and even when things get self-indulgent and fuzzy-headed (and boy, do they!), interesting stuff is going on.

Yet the movie sustains a mood. It passionately believes in itself and in the value of the messy artistic lives it glosses, and some of that belief rubs off on you.

Aims for a sadness and desperation that is crudely announced rather than subtly demonstrated.

Does become more engaging as it lurches along, perhaps because you give up hoping that anything will really happen and settle into the Nicolas Roeg-meets-David Lynch-at-the-cast-party-for-"Taxi Driver" atmosphere of mid-'70s nothingness.

The ethos of the Chelsea Hotel may shape Hawke's artistic aspirations, but he hasn't yet coordinated his own DV poetry with the Beat he hears in his soul.

The few minutes of footage devoted to a performance by bona fide jazz artist "Little" Jimmy Scott, an eccentric cult favorite, is more genuinely evocative than anything else in the film

Pretension, in its own way, is a form of bravery. For this reason and this reason only -- the power of its own steadfast, hoity-toity convictions -- Chelsea Walls deserves a medal.

Works equally poorly as a tourist brochure and as a drama.

Speak a great deal, but they don't have much to say. A dull ensembler.

As for Hawke's direction, if there is any, it certainly isn't apparent. The shots are frequently bland and uneven, and the players act as though their only instruction was ''Just show up at the set and remember your lines.'' At least they seem to have gotten that much right.

With most movies that fail, the fault can be ascribed to carelessness or lack or inspiration or cynicism. But Chelsea Walls, directed by actor Ethan Hawke, is clearly a labor of love.