ELEVEN MINUTES
Produced & Directed by Michael Selditch & Rob Tate
Released by Regent Releasing
USA. 103 min. Rated R
With Jay McCarroll, Kelly Culrone, Nancy Kane, Carson Kressley, Jason Low, Omahyra, Michael Rucker, Ève Salvail, Michael Selditch & George Whipple III
 

Fledgling fashion designer Jay McCarroll was hailed “the next great American designer” in 2004. Two years after winning the first season of Bravo’s reality TV series Project Runway, directors Michael Selditch and Rob Tate trailed Jay for Project Jay, a follow-up for Bravo.

Selditch and Tate pick up where they left off with Eleven Minutes—the title references the average time of a runway show. While Jay produces his first post-TV runway show for the 2007 New York Fashion Week, the directors try to dig deeper than their last dive into Jay’s life at Bravo’s behest.

But all this really means is that expletives aren’t excised. Since the inspiration for Jay’s line is hot air balloons, and this film is an artistic documentary and not “Project Jay 2,” Tate, also serving as editor, splices shots of Jay in front of balloons as segues and diversions from cinematic lulls. Selditch and Tate attempt to reveal how a major fashion line grows from the grit of the ground, but all we learn is that the fashion world is too insular for anyone off the industry’s isolated island to make any sense. Whether you’re an outsider or an insider, you probably already knew that.

The tropes of TV prove as inescapable for Jay as for Selditch and Tate. When interviewed in the film, their protagonist admits he’s gotten his slight head start in the fashion game based on his personality rather than his talent. But this isn’t a revelation—at least not for the audience. All Jay’s publicity team talks about is his Project Runway experience, and how he’s impressive only because he’s the show’s sole winner to have even attempted to create his own line. (His publicists work pro bono—they see him, their only client with a recognizable name, as a long-term investment. That seems unlikely, since the only celebrities who appeared at his show were other former Project Runway contestants.)

This is a tedious porthole into New York’s fashion underbelly, and Jay isn’t charismatic or complicated enough to carry this film as a personality portrait. The film’s release would have capitalized on the new season of Project Runway in full swing—if only the show wasn’t stuck in a lawsuit battle between rival cable networks. Like Jay’s career, the shelved show is at a standstill until further notice. Zachary Jones
February 20, 2009