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It's often said that for an artist's work to truly resonate, the artist needs to have had life experience. Anyone familiar with Asia Argento's background undoubtedly knows that even at the relatively youthful age of 25 the worldly actress probably has enough experience to fill a trilogy. This said, the competent but flawed Scarlet Diva finds the ambitious Argento still struggling to find her footing as a director. It's easy to throw around words like "pretentious," "over-indulgent," "self-absorbed," and "vanity project" when confronted with an often uncomfortably excessive film such as Scarlet Diva, though closer inspection reveals that Argento is actually trying to say something about the entertainment industry and the soulless existence which can result from getting sucked into it's temptations. Containing a refreshingly punkish unrestraint and some telling situations that may cut a little too close to the bone for some entertainment industry insiders, Argento has filtered her experiences in the film and modeling business into a telling semi-autobiographical expose. In addition, Argento's powerful visual sense results in some striking and grotesquely beautiful imagery, no surprise coming from the daughter of one of the most visually flamboyant directors out there, Dario Argento. Yet despite the film's strengths, Asia Argento's inexperience in directing results in some stiff and unconvincing performances across the board, herself included. Her father's films have often been criticized as exercises in style over substance, and though Scarlet Diva certainly contains substance in abundance, the substance never hits the viewer as hard as Argento seems to have anticipated. In terms of effectively conveying the plight of her characters, Argento will never be truly effective until she finds the means to work with her actors to extract the emotion needed for her films to have true impact.