WE ARE all so media savvy these days that there won't be anybody reading this who isn't familiar with the rags-to-riches-and-back-again story. Celebrity's a fickle thing. It lifts you up and throws you down. Fame comes with a price. And all that. These are the lessons that Tina Menzhal, aka Tina, a small-town Canadian girl must learn on the rollercoaster ride to supermodel stardom in this underachieving spoof of the fame-and-fashion industries.

You can't fault writer-director Denys Arcand's take on the machinations of the glamour world, but as parodies go this is a blunt instrument. Derivative humour about the fickleness of the media, flitting from one exaggerated news report to a hammy chat show to another limp supermodel caricature, is the stuff of fringe revue. It's funny for a while, but wont last the course of a whole feature.

Jessica Pare as Tina is rarely called on to do much but smile, strut and look beautiful. Which she does just fine. Quebecois theatre and film director Robert LePage, as a quasi-philosophical cameraman who is making a documentary about Tina, provides a welcome respite to the histrionics of the media circus, but spends too little time in front of the camera to add his drole commentary. Aykroyd as an ageing restauranteer who falls for the supermodel star, trades easily on his star quality and is one of the most watchable, leading one to think that a few more starry faces might have lifted the production: if it worked for Altman, why not here?

That is not to say the movie is poorly produced. In fact, it looks good in an expensive way, with mock-ups of studio talk shows and fashion shows. The cinematography of the occasional spoof advertisements are good enough to be the real thing.

But therein also lies the problem. The film is too in love with its subject matter, when what it could have done with is less lipstick and more bite.