Drunks (1995)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Peter Cohn

Writers (WGA):

Gary Lennon (play)
Gary Lennon (screenplay)

Release Date:

14 March 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

All they want is another shot...

Plot:

At the beginning of a nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jim seems particularly troubled. His sponsor encourages him to talk that night...

Plot Keywords:

Alcoholic | Drugs | Alcoholics Anonymous | Bar | Bartender

Cast

Richard Lewis	...	Jim
Liza Harris	...	Melanie
Liam Ahern	...	Billy
George Martin	...	Marty
Sam Rockwell	...	Tony
Amanda Plummer	...	Shelley
Kevin Corrigan	...	Cam
Fanni Green	...	Jasmine
Parker Posey	...	Debbie
Dianne Wiest	...	Rachel
Billy Dove	...	Leo
Julie Halston	...	Carol
Faye Dunaway	...	Becky
Lisa Gay Hamilton	...	Brenda
Calista Flockhart	...	Helen

MPAA:

Rated R for pervasive strong language, substance abuse and a sex scene.

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

Australia:MA | Iceland:L | Portugal:M/12 (video premiere) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

BMG Independents

Trivia:

Script began as a play, "Blackout", which ran Off-Broadway in 1990.

Quotes:

Debbie: You want to talk about bad blackouts? I was married in one. I was married in a blackout, I'm serious. I was 19 years old. I was married for 6 weeks, yeah. I was married to this guy named Wild Bob. That was his full name, Wild Bob. So I guess I was Mrs. Wild Bob. Hi everyone, welcome to my life. Do you Debbie, take Wild Bob to be your lawfully wedded husband? I do.

Movie Connections:

References "Father Knows Best" (1954)

reality and acting on the dark side of inebriation

Richard Lewis is one of my all-time favorite comedians. Mel Brooks once called him the Franz Kafka of comedy, and it's not far from the truth. The guy crafts such agonizing and harrowing comedy out of neuroses and problems and just common familial and relationship and whatever dread that it's staggering to watch (seeing him recently it was even more free-form and stream-of-conscious than ever, like Kurt Vonnegut and Woody Allen in a Bowery bar telling penis jokes). But he also was, in his past, troubled and on drugs and alcohol and went to a therapist for years and so on, and finally kicked it for good in the early 90s (he even wrote a sprawling, scatter-shot tell-all book called The Other Great Depression). So, in 1995, he took the lead part in Drunks, and if it may seem like his performance as Jim is so spot on and incredible it's more than likely because he knows this character, maybe all too well.

I go on about Lewis so much just because he's the character most on the edge, the one falling off amongst all these other AA people meeting in a Manhattan Church, that it's impossible to take your eyes off him when he shows up. Jim, who speaks very reluctantly to the couple of dozen people at the AA meeting, lost his wife to a brain aneurysm two years after becoming sober from booze and junk. Then he slipped and went back and at the time of the meeting he hasn't had a drink in several months. Right after this long and heartfelt confession he leaves and wanders the streets, tempted at first and finally giving in to his insatiable craving to whiskey and beer. While he goes from either bar to his apartment or on the streets for drugs the film cuts back to the AA meeting where other people share their experiences, some fatally tragic like the blackout guy, or Dianne Wiest's doctor, or Faye Dunaway's upper-class mother, or Sam Rockwell's seemingly regular guy, or even Parker Posey as an ex-hippie chick.

Hell, even Calista Flockheart gives a showstopper of a performance, which is an indicator of how on top of things the actors are here. It is, if as a real liability, written and performed like a play, and it's broken up as a series of monologues inter-cut with Jim in his downward spiral mode. The good thing about director Peter Cohn's approach is that even if a monologue falls kind of flat- I actually didn't care much for Spalding Gray who sort of mumbled through his character's turn as the guy who just showed up not knowing it was an AA meeting in the basement of the church- it can cut back to Richard Lewis who, in particular in one later scene at a bar, lays it down to such a heartbreaking beat that you almost wish he was in a Bergman movie or something - or, for that matter, one of Woody Allen's serious films. He's that amazing here, whether it's just how he is or if it's a "performance" or whatever. It's an actor's movie, and for that it works well. Just don't watch it for anything fancy or flashy; it's slightly obscure for that reason, since it doesn't have a real "star" attached.