Hurlyburly (1998)
This is a buddy movie, pure and simple. It's different from the usual buddy flick in that it is based on a play (by David Rabe) and therefore has a more sophisticated theme and snappier dialog than, say, Lethal Weapon. Still, it's all about a bunch of guys who would rather not deal with women too seriously.
Eddie is a talent agent in Hollywood. He's very tightly wound and does way too many drugs as well, which makes him a pain in the ass to be around. He talks all the time, mostly to his roommates, Mickey and Phil, both of whom have been thrown out of the house by their wives. Mickey works with Eddie in some capacity, while Phil is a low level actor typecast as the quiet muscular type. They're opposites in many ways--Mickey is together, smart, urbane, Phil is an excon and a goon. All of them are very ambivalent about women (while remaining ardently straight, of course) and all of them are extraordinarily verbal, even the inarticulate Phil, unfortunately.
These three fellows, along with buddy Artie who drops by a lot, would spend all of their time talking and blowing weed if it weren't for the women that move in and out of their sad little frat-house existence. There is Darlene, who is nominally Eddie's girl friend, though Mickey has had a fling with her. Phil is married and desperately wants to get back with his wife while seeming to want to strangle her at the same time. There is a performance artist-cum-stripper who likes to hang around. And there is a jailbait street kid that seems to like casual sex very much (these fellows show bad judgement as a matter of course).
That's the whole movie. A few important things happen, but I shouldn't give them away. By the end, things have changed and there is an epiphany and even a little redemption. Mostly, Hurlyburly is about the characters.
The movie has the star power for a character study. Sean Penn plays Eddie as someone who is trying so hard to understand the meaning of everything going on around him and failing miserably because he is hung up on the words. He thinks that we create meaning by putting it all into words, by creating verbal symbols, yet he is too concrete, too literal minded, and as a result he gets hung up on semantics and definitions. (He actually has an argument with Darlene over whether she is indifferent or just doesn't care). Penn takes chances with Eddie, portraying him as a self-abused loser with barely a shred of self-respect; in one key scene Eddie is left literally holding his tool.
Kevin Spacey is perfect for the self-contained and knowing Mickey, unflappable, in control and always ready to joust with Eddy. Of course, if Mickey is really all that together, you wonder why his wife threw him out to live with Eddy. He's built a wall of sarcasm around himself. Ordinarily, you'd think that this was all defense, that there was a vulnerable and scared Mickey behind the Flip Mickey. I don't believe so--I think there's nothing there, or else he's Flip Mickey alll the way down to his core.
The best performance is Chaz Palminteri as the pathetic thug Phil. He's trying to figure out what's going on around him and he puts it all into words, but nothing comes out that makes any sense. Watching Phil is like watching Zippy the Pinhead. In spite of the funny sounds that come out of his mouth, he's a character of extreme menace who might go off at any minute. Whenever he's in a scene, you're afraid he might kill somebody.
The women in the film are played by Robin Wright Penn, Anna Paquin and Meg Ryan, each of whom does a fine job in three very different roles. I don't want to slight their work here, but the movie is clearly about the boys; these fine actresses have enough to do but their characters are clearly satellites. The verbal and inarticulate Eddy is really in love with the verbal and inarticulate Phil. That's the emotional heart of Hurlyburly.
In the end, Phil tries to make himself a better person and fails. Eddie learns a little bit more about what life is really about. Mickey is still Mickey.
Hurlyburly is a good character movie and it's really a lot of fun to watch all these stars do their work. Still, the movie is relatively plotless and the movement at the end is all small and relative. Hurlyburly betrays its theatrical roots. It's very intellectual, very talky, and not much happens. The resolution at the end is small and you have to think about it. There's nothing wrong with that, as far as I'm concerned, but I've seen a lot of this sort of thing over the last few years. In a way, Hurlyburly seems like a remake of Glengary Glen Ross, and I'm not sure how many of those we need. I'd recommend Hurlyburly highly to anyone who likes this sort of thing, and not at all to anybody who doesn't.
Kevin W. Welch kwelch@mailbag.com
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