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Atom Egoyan, no stranger to labyrinthine plots, makes this one into a whodunit puzzle crossed with some faraway echoes of "Sunset Boulevard," as an entertainer is confronted with events from the past that might best be left forgotten. The movie takes place in 1957 and 1972, and both of those years involve the crucial participation of beautiful young blondes who want to interview the two stars.

In 1957, Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Collins (Colin Firth) are at the height of their fame, doing a nightclub act not a million miles apart from Martin and Lewis. The secret of their round-the-clock energy is the use of pills, lots of pills from their Dr. Feelgood, which give them more urgency than they need in the realm of sex. A college student named Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard) arrives at their suite with room service, and when they suggest another kind of service, she seems sort of willing. She wants to interview them for her school paper.

It is Maureen who is found dead in Atlantic City, leading to a mystery that is never solved, and to the breakup of Morris and Collins. Flash forward to 1972, and another would-be reporter, Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman). Still in her mid-20s, she negotiates a $1 million book contract for Collins, who needs the money, but tells him he will have to talk about the murder of Maureen O'Flaherty. What Collins doesn't know is that Karen earlier met Lanny Morris on an airplane, followed him to his hotel room, and was dumped the next morning. What a rotter. What neither man knows is that Karen first met them in 1957, when as a young polio victim she appeared on their telethon. Nor does she know that Morris' tears as he talked to her were inspired not by her plight but by his knowledge that a dead waitress was on the sofa in their hotel suite.

Who killed the waitress, and why? It's a classic locked room mystery; all the relevant doors were locked from the inside, and so either man could have done it. But what if neither did? One imagines Ellery Queen rubbing his hands and getting down to work.

The attempts of Karen O'Connor to get Collins to talk are complicated by his own secrecy, financial need, lust, and general depravity. From his hillside mansion in Los Angeles, he lives in lonely isolation, happy to come and go as he pleases. His former partner Morris maintains an office and is apparently more active in showbiz, and both of them have reasons to pressure and mislead the young woman.

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