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Writer-director Jake Hoffman's "Asthma" is one of those New York indie character studies that would have played well at the Sundance Film Festival 20 years ago, but now just spews out faux hipster clichés.
It takes only minutes to dislike the main character, Gus (Benedict Samuel), a rich-kid slacker artist in Manhattan who shows his depressed rebellion by painting over his Jim Morrison poster. He gets more insufferable when he steals a Rolls, then stalks Ruby (Krysten Ritter, star of the upcoming "Jessica Jones" series), a tattoo artist over whom he's obsessed, and offers her a ride to a job in Connecticut. This is before she learns Gus is also a heroin addict who will scrounge, steal and lie to get money for his next fix.
Ruby takes him along to visit his Connecticut client, Logan (Dov Tiefenbach), a rock star with a commune-like backyard of bikini-clad vegan groupies and an in-house yogi (Goran Visnjic).
Ritter's luminous presence stands out from the phony posturing and random cameos (like Iggy Pop as a conspiracy theorist or Nick Nolte as the voice of Gus' spirit animal). Hoffman, in his feature debut, bets the farm that we will somehow see what Ruby does in this drug-addled creep — and, having given us no signs of redemption, he loses that bet.
'Asthma'
Opening Friday, Nov. 20, at the Tower Theatre; not rated, but probably R for sexuality, nudity, drug use and language; 90 minutes.