what is sunset boulevard about

Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett). The film is named after a major street that runs through Hollywood, the center of the American film industry. The story is narrated by a dead man whom Norma Desmond first mistakes for an undertaker, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark house that only opens its doors to the living dead"). The film is about a failed screenwriter named Joe Gillis who falls into a mercenary romance with a faded silent-film star named Norma Desmond. The film exposes the film capital at its worst as a world of fleeting fame where almost everybody is on the hustle for success, money, and sex. The film is often hailed as the definitive insider portrait of Hollywood and one of the first serious treatments of life in Hollywood. Sunset Boulevard is a classic example of film noir, and its dark, cynical tone, voiceover, and dialogue remain relevant to this day.