Writer-director I-fan Quirk's feature debut Being Claudine stars Justine Litchman as a fledgling New York actress, a plot point the audience quickly figures out when she's shown in an acting class, reciting Shakespeare. Over the past century, filmmakers have developed innovative narrative techniques, including jump cuts, shifting timelines, subjective perspectives, on-screen titles, and even animation, and yet the formula remains: Acting = Shakespeare. That's cliché number one in Being Claudine, and the list gets pretty long. Stylistically, the film follows the NYC Romantic Comedy blueprint, moving gradually from long shot to medium shot as people talk in loft apartments, talk in restaurants, or talk while walking down streets. Character-wise, Quirk relies on quirks (the smokers smoke, the boors bore), and in the film's lowest bit of low-imagination characterization, Litchman's vapid boyfriend (James Bowman) signals his worthlessness by laughing loudly and continuously at Saturday-morning cartoons, while elbowing his bedmate in the ribs. Being Claudine grinds through a shopworn plot—can a well-meaning but bumbling young woman find love and success in the big city?—complete with contrived moments of wackiness when Litchman mistakenly discovers a man she likes is gay (and passes the info on to his parents) or has to repeat a dumb piece of ad copy over and over again at an audition. Litchman's unusual look and intrinsic sweetness command attention even when nothing much is going on, but she doesn't have much of an ear for comedy, and she swallows Quirk's few good lines. (For example, the Woody Allen-esque "We never talked about the Holocaust… Did his family kill mine?") Being Claudine began life as an NYU student film, and its genial lack of ambition and straightforward storytelling no doubt stuck out among the dourer and more pretentious efforts of Quirk's peers. But when a novice graduates from showcase screenings and regional festivals to theatrical bookings, it's not unreasonable to expect an original cinematic talent, or at least gifted craftsmanship. Quirk provides nothing to get excited about; even when he cuts frames to speed conversations along, his pacing stumbles, and his dialogue isn't worth suffering through all the awkward pauses. The key line in the film comes when Litchman scours the classifieds for acting work and responds to a suggestion from her roommate by muttering, "A student film? I haven't sunk that low!" Apparently, Quirk thinks that filmgoers have.