DYING IS EASY; MOVIES ARE HARD.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE annoyingly titled ``ivans xtc.'' is, according to its director Bernard Rose, the movie that powerful talent broker Creative Artists Agency doesn't want you to see.

CAA, of course, dismisses the allegation. But it's certainly apparent how a film like this could make agents uncomfortable, even as it goes to lengthy efforts to reinforce the little-held perception that Hollywood agents are as human as you or I.

Based, quite loosely, on Tolstoy's reflective story ``The Death of Ivan Ilyich'' and much more obviously on the drug-demolished life of CAA's and Rose's own former agent, the late Jay Maloney, ``ivans'' wallows in cutthroat tactics, amoral relationships and excessive partying.

While all that's presented with a nasty, if often stereotypical, elan, it's the humanizing stuff that will probably sink the film for anyone who doesn't think about percentages all day long. Ivan Beckman, played with lots of commitment but too much self-pity by Danny Huston (the great director John's son), discovers that he has lung cancer on the same day that he triumphantly lures a big, monomaniacal movie star (Peter Weller, having fun) from a rival to his CAA-ish Media Talent Agency.

His subsequent behavior, which involves more cocaine, prostitutes and furtiveness than usual, is seen by both those who love and despise him as typical Ivan, turbo-boosted by success. He's afraid to tell anybody the truth about his rapidly deteriorating health, the idea being that Hollywood insiders will tolerate any degeneracy except the real one: mortality.

This is pretty specious reasoning. Yes, entertainment is a business of youth-worship and cosmetic surgery, but does anything tap the sap in this town like the death or catastrophic illness of an admired player? It also seems like an easy way to throw sympathy the agent's way. The real Maloney, after losing it all to addictions, committed suicide. But that's a tougher tale to tell empathetically.

Of course, a movie that was all show-biz venality all the time would be, well, ``The Player,'' if you're lucky, and a lot of other tiresome movies if you're not. For better or worse, ``ivans' '' best moments are the sharply observed ones from the movie trenches.

You've got to love the bit where a betrayed director disrupts a synagogue memorial service to confront the agent who sold him out. There are strong exchanges between Ivan and his smart, equally coked-up girlfriend Charlotte (Lisa Enos, who produced the film), an aspiring writer who knows the scripts her lover promotes but doesn't read are garbage. And the dinner argument between Ivan and his real artist sister and father (the latter played by Huston's brother-in-law, the real artist Robert Graham), while fairly trite, has got to be a conversation that goes on every night in creative households throughout the city.

Shot quite smartly in high-definition digital, ``ivans xtc.'' takes us on an eye-pleasing tour of terrific hillside homes, as well as some of L.A.'s best restaurants and intensive care units. What goes on in these posh locales can be pretty ugly. But when Rose tries to get grandly tragic and even transcendent, usually to overwrought classical accompaniment, it is more painful.

ivans xtc. - Two and one half stars

(Not rated: drug use, nudity, sex, language)

Starring: Danny Huston, Peter Weller, Lisa Enos, James Merendino, Adam Krentzman.

Director: Bernard Rose.

Running time: 1 hr. 32 min.

Playing: Fairfax Cinemas, L.A.