We open on the set of a talk show. A dignified older host with shambles of tobacco teeth introduces our protagonist: Dr. Henry Carter, therapist to the stars. Henry, played with tired eyes by Kevin Spacey, adjusts his glasses like he’s done this a million times and throws the camera a quick smile.
Next we’re in Henry’s large, modern office. It’s morning and we see the doctor plod into work wearing week-old scruff and an expensive gray suit. He greets his off-screen secretary, a woman with the charred-tin voice of a decent looking character actress. The secretary, whom I imagine as a dyed blonde size 8, tells Henry his book has broken onto the bestseller list. And, by extension, lets us know that Henry is somewhat of a celebrity himself, thereby a legitimizing him as the leading man in this film about Hollywood.
Next we see a montage of Henry’s clients. A troubled starlet, a paranoid executive, a jittery struggling writer with a three-hundred dollar haircut, a beautiful actress and her actor boyfriend who brings beer to his sessions. All of who fling their Hollywood problems at the revered Dr. Carter in quick-cut succession.
But the real issue is with Henry, a psychological wreck in his own right. He’s gone down the path of all-night pot benders, the destruction symbol of choice for smart, wealthy movie characters over the age of forty. Henry does a lot of stumbling around and waking up in places other than his bed. Places like the driver’s seat of his BMW and the chair next to his Hollywood Hills backyard pool. So somebody stages an intervention. Henry claims to have Compassion Fatigue Syndrome.
We begin to track with the screwed-up struggling writer who has that expensive hair — a young, good-looking guy who seems to be a bit of a catalyst for Henry’s own recovery. At this point all the characters become interconnected. The writer has encounters with the starlet and the paranoid exec. Twice Henry runs into the beautiful actress whose narcissistic, lager-toting boyfriend she’s kicked to the curb. This woman wants to bang Henry, her therapist, but instead they eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on the sidewalk.
Three title cards appear. RELATIONSHIPS. ENTANGLEMENTS. COMPLICATIONS. The paranoid exec, previously seen as a cheating-hearted straight guy named Angus on The L Word, paces around Henry’s office like a paranoid person might. He thinks there’s danger everywhere. Then we’re introduced to Henry’s pot dealer, a white kid with Mark David Chapman glasses and the cadence of slow rotisserie used to indicate relative innocence. Henry asks serious questions the kid can’t answer and then goes nuts. He throws papers around, punches someone in the face, and there’s a mysterious shot involving a hill and a shovel.
Things speed up. Henry interacts with his clients. His clients interact with one another. Freedom metaphors abound: motorcycle rides, index cards flung into the wind, shouts from high atop a hill that overlooks the city. Followed by a final encounter between Henry and his pot dealer in the kid’s car, a comic moment where we see that Henry has taken to treating his dealer like his very own therapist. Right there in the backseat of a car parked high on a palm tree laden hill overlooking Los Angeles.
The shot is beautiful, just like rest of it. Playfully handheld long lenses capture an attractive cast and the sprawling landscapes of a flawed Heaven. Because in Hollywood there’s an Other Hollywood. A place where quaint mental breakdowns are an occupational hazard of being brilliant. Where it’s safe, if not charming to drink in the middle of the afternoon if you’re in a five-hundred dollar flannel shirt and have a handsome face and overflowing talent.
A different sort of logic prevails in these kinds of L.A. films, which take the circumstances of Real Hollywood fantasy life: the temptation, the indulgence, the irreverent behavior, and describe them as the tragic flaws of compelling antiheroes. And, detrimentally, as indicators of brilliance. These special creative people just can’t help themselves, but aren’t they more interesting for it? It’s an unattainable reality, where you can have your cake and avoid being judged for it, too. Because in the real world if you’re drinking in public in the middle of the afternoon or going around punching people in the face you’re going to end up on the homepage of a gossip site with a doodled cock coming out of your ear. And you will be mocked by millions for your privileged buffoonery.
In this sense gentle Hollywood films fall into the category of ultimate escapism, because they’re made by people who should know better. Written with the desperate desire to break into this world, but also hopeful that the world is something it isn’t. Because, let’s face it, Hollywood is fucking gross almost all of the time.* I’ve seen the jittery creative writer crumble in the face of the big white guy in a suit. I’ve also seen people on drugs who are grappling with newfound success and the implications of their own brilliance, and there is always a substantial amount of whimpering and, like, snot. Captured on camera these scenarios would feel more like episodes of The Apprentice and Intervention, respectively, than Shrink.
But I guess if you’re sitting in a coffee shop with a copy of Final Draft it’s nice to imagine that your inner demons are so interesting to other people that they will revere you for your devastatingly poor behavior. And for your three-hundred dollar haircut.
*Except for those times you meet someone at maybe a dinner party in a big house who has done a lot of cool things and has great stories and opinions and you end up drinking red wine until the sun comes up, but this usually happens completely by accident and without act breaks.
(Left: Thomas Moffett, writer of Shrink, Right: Jeremy, the jittery writer character with the hair)
5 months ago