Hey folks, Harry here with the latest on our favorite strange and unusual gal... Christina Ricci... I love her like I love Johnny Depp only with lust added, and I could careless what any human's opinion of her latest work is, cuz I'm seeing it regardless. It's Christina Ricci... Yeah, some may call her the moonface assassin of joy, but they be wrong. I lub dat gal! And from the director of INSOMNIA (the original, not the upcoming remake)? Well... I'll see it later this year when it breaks, for now... remember this is only one person's opinion.... and who knows his opinion may be as worthless as that Harry sellout bastard that runs this page.... Hey.... Waitaminute.... dat be me! Shut up self! No you shut up! I hate you! I love you! Well how about a handjob? Ummmm ok.... see ya later folks....
Lo, Harry. Just got back from a screening of PROZAC NATION over at the Paramount lot and let me tell you...the way the film plays now...it's a mess. A complete and utter trainwreck. Coming from the director of the terrific INSOMNIA (soon to be remade with Al Pacino) and featuring Christina Ricci in what you would think would be the perfect part for her, this film is a major disappointment in almost every department--writing, directing, acting, etc. It's going to take some major editing to make this thing work. It's essentially the monotonous arthouse bore some critics accused MAGNOLIA of being.
Quiet simply, I did not buy this film for one minute. It just felt dramatically false. All of it. All the confrontations, all the "depressed" scenes...they feel scripted. They didn't feel real. And because of that, I was never engaged in the story. In the film Christina Ricci plays a chronically depressed college student named Lizzy. The problem is Lizzy never feels like a real, fully rounded character - even though she's supposedly based on an actual person. She just plays like a screenwriter's construction of what a depressed teenage girl should be: overdramatic, self-pitying, and spiteful. She's never the figure of audience sympathy the filmmakers seem to think she is. She treats her mother like shit, treats her boyfriend like shit, treats her friend Ruby (Michelle Williams) like shit, and gives Ruby's boyfriend a spontaneous blowjob...and I don't know why. And the filmmakers expect us to care about this person? A protagonist can be difficult and still garner audience sympathy--they just have to be INTERESTING. And Lizzy isn't interesting. She's a bore.
The acting in the film was across the board pretty bad. It's not so much the fault of the actors as it is the writing and directing. Anne Heche makes little impression as Lizzy's psychiatrist. You know the great interplay between Robin Williams and Matt Damon in GOOD WILL HUNTING? Nothing like that here. It's almost as if the director told Anne Heche to play her character as a blank cypher. No emotion whatsoever. The opposite is true of Jessica Lange: she goes over the top in her role as Lizzy's shrill mother. It's Gary Oldman syndrome: she throws herself into a one-note character that isn't worth it. I almost felt embarrassed watching her.
Speaking of acting, doesn't casting Christina Ricci as a suicidal teenage girl strike you as just kind of...obvious? That's the whole problem with the movie: it's too obvious. No subtlety. Lizzy's a mess because her parents fought when she was a child. Lizzy's mom and dad are constantly screaming at each other because they're divorced and that's what divorced people ALWAYS have to do when they speak to one another. Lizzy sleeps with her bestfriend's boyfriend because...well...she's a fuck-up and that's what fuck-ups do, too.
Obviously, the film is a long way from being done, but I don't think there's a good movie hiding under all the piles of crap. The acting and writing just isn't there. It was oddly appropriate that the film was projected on video - PROZAC NATION feels like a bad TV movie. After it was over, I whispered to my friend, "They're gonna sell this one off to the Lifetime network."
Watch it and tell me I'm wrong.
Take it easy.
King of Nails.
