Shrink

One of the most difficult film genres to master is the dark comedy. The cast and crew have to balance between humor and drama infused with themes that are frequently considered to be morose, even depressing. One of the first films in this genre was ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ (1944) which combined senility, serial murder and criminal insanity all blended in a movie that never fails to bring out laughter with the audience. This certainly did have a lasting effect on this type of film by establishing an extremely high standard for the dark comedies that will follow. In the case of ‘Shrink’, one of the latest movies to endeavor taking on this genre the themes of grief depression and suicide just may be too much to take on successfully. The film is quietly ambitious but ultimately unable to fully achieve what it as set out to do. There is no one thing that you can point to as a cause; cast and crew all gave their all in an honest effort but occasionally things just don’t gel and this is a prime example. While the results could have been a lot better what does remain is a fairly good sample of the genre that will provide a reasonable evening of entertainment. It was an independent film which does mean a little more latitude can be afforded the production. An Indy movie is supposed to be out of the conventional box; exploring new territory and extending the artistic vision of the film maker. In the best possible cases the audience will embrace the film and it will take off in popularity. In the case of this film it appears that the point was to show a man sliding down; losing his ability to process the events that surrounds him. It was presented in fairly realistic terms hoping to extract its dark humor by establishing an emotional connection and understanding with the audience.

A film of this genre was an extremely ambitious choice for a new script writer but to his credit Thomas Moffett didn’t go for the east way out for his second time providing a screenplay. His only other script was ‘Frost’, a romantic comedy-drama. Although the dialogue is very predictable, bordering on pedantic there is an ember within it that fanned by additional experience could make a showing with far greater things. Added by tight, expert delivery of a master of such role, Kevin Spacey the script manages to remain sufficiently interesting to make the film better than it otherwise would come off. The situations employed here have been frequently used especially of late but once again there is that hint of potential just waiting to be uncovered. What Moffett has naturally tapped into is one of the fundamental aspects of the dark comedy; it is frequent best if built up on a foundation of classic tragedy with just a dollop of iron. This provides a means to both the humor and drama required. Here the story centers on Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey). He is a psychiatrist who has built a reputation in the media as expert on happiness. The irony comes into play with his growing battle against clinical depression which is escalating to suicidal aspirations. Exasperating the condition is his sense of failure. He feels he is defrauding the people who purchase his book and is now unable to reconcile the darkness of his affect with his advice on the happiness of others. Carter begins to spiral into depression as a result of failing to cope with a personal tragedy causing him to view his overly pillaged clientele’s problem with increasing distain. They are a cross section of self adsorbed Hollywood stereotypes that include the requisite randy Irish actor Shamus (Jack Huston) with a substance abuse problem of an actor, Holden (Robin Williams) who is convinced he is a sex addict when actually he is a common place alcoholic. Carter turns to booze and pot in a way that has been so over used lately that the Writer’s Guild should issue a moratorium on the plot device.

The production overly depends on a parade of well known faces as the famous patients and while director Jonas Pate does get some interesting cameos from them there is just too much of what we all have seen before. Most of Pate’s experience has been with television which seems to be part of the episodic feel this film has. He is moving towards a more cohesive film here but the journey has only begun. The main character arc is the emotional and psychological disintegration of this man. Pate does very adept at pacing the story is done in such a way as to allow the audience to understand this man through the performance that Spacey provides. While the film does not reach its potential it does entertain.

Posted 09/25/09