MEET MONICA VELOUR “You screw a few hundred guys and the whole world turns against you,” says Linda Romanoli (Kim Cattrall) in Meet Monica Velour, an innocuous dramedy whose main attraction is the committed performance (and meta-performance) of its female lead. Far removed from Samantha Jones' stiletto stomping grounds and empowered sexual purview, Linda is a former porn star living in a trailer park in Indiana, scraping up gigs at the edge-of-town peeler bar. Her 1970s alter ego, Monica Velour, happens to be the chief obsession of the teenage Tobe (Dustin Ingram), a reedy mouth-breather several states away, who's stuck in the golden age of everything, including dirty movies. Given the family hot dog truck for graduation by his brusque grandpop (Brian Dennehy), Tobe decides to track down Ms. Velour. What he finds is a beaten-down drunk burdened with a bully ex-husband and a custody battle. But Tobe, blinded by Linda's XXX legacy, persists in idealizing her, even as he inserts himself into her hard-luck life. Writer-director Keith Bearden blends two parts quirk and one part pathos in hope of serving up the classic indie cocktail. The result is unbalanced by cartoonish flourishes — Ingram's performance being the chief offender — that overpower Cattrall's subtler character work. (Michelle Orange) (Sunset 5)

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