Thoughts on Hurlyburly

 

Via Giphy. Courtesy Warner Bros.

*Eddie (Sean Penn), high on cocaine, is ranting to Mickey (Kevin Spacey), who's walking out of Eddie's Hollywood Hills home and possibly their partnership as casting directors*
"You have no feelings AT ALL!"
"No, Eddie, you know what? I, I just don't have your feelings. That's all. I have my own. And you know what? They get me by."
"So what kind of friendship is this?"
"(after a pause, then a "What can I say?" gesture) Adequate. Goodnight."
*Mickey leaves, and Eddie does more coke*

Whether by accident or design, Hurlyburly is one hell of an anti-drug PSA. Who the hell wants to get high if you're going to end up a chattering mess? And, boy howdy, does Sean Penn chatter in Hurlyburly. David Rabe adapted his more than three-hour play into a film that's just over two hours, and it's still talky as hell.

There's at least one salient point in Hurlyburly: being surrounded by lowlifes doesn't guarantee that you're the best person. Rabe's most obvious dreg is Phil (Chazz Palminteri), an ex-con who's never going to make it as an actor. He's also not someone you should claim knowledge of football against, as teenage "care package" Donna (Anna Paquin) learns by getting headbutted. "That's the game!" Nor should you let Phil drive your car, as sex worker Bonnie (Meg Ryan) learns when she's thrown out while it's still moving.

Darlene (Robin Wright Penn) is a fashion photographer fought over by Eddie and Mickey. Her flaw is that she's not monogamous. Eddie and Darlene eventually flame out, but not before an excruciating argument over which restaurant to go to, French or Chinese. Finally, there's Artie (Garry Shandling), the producer who gifts Donna, calls Phil's infant daughter "a broad of the future," gets peed or shit on by the baby (let's hear it for today's women), and depending on how a Disneyland outing goes, might wind up with Bonnie.

*Eddie and Mickey recall when they used Bonnie to "relax" an actor. Mickey's given what would seem to be the punchline: "Welcome to L.A."*

"... And the look on the kid's face."

"What?"

"I forgot about her kid. *weary chuckle* Christ."

*Mickey's apparently forgotten this, and is now listening with fascination*

"She's got a 6-year-old daughter ... and ... she was there."

"She was with us?"

"In the front seat."

"*rather quickly; the memory's now completely returned* No. I was driving. I don't remember. I ... we were ripped, weren't we?"

"Then we would have forgotten the whole thing."

"I was blotto. I was personally blotto. I remember that."

"Bullshit. ... Bullshit."

"Wow. So, anyway, Robbie's wong comes out, and this guy's got one, I mean, he's epic. Right? It's legendary."

"The kid was catatonic."

"The kid was petrified. There's her mother going into combat in the backseat with this horse."

"She looked like she'd gotten hit in the back of the head with a rock. Remember?"

*Mickey's lips are in a closed smile, his eyes look about ready to cry, and he gives a "Goddamn you" slow headshake*

"... This is sick, isn't it? Just a, it's a little sick."

"I mean, once it was a guy from TV, what chance did Bonnie have? This was an opportunity to mix with the gods, we were offering her in the backseat of our car. *rueful half-smile*"

Directed by Mike Nichols with several A-listers and stars-to-be weaving their way in and out, the original off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Hurlyburly ran for just under a year in 1984-85. Sean Penn headlined the show's 1988 L.A. premiere, and Ethan Hawke led a 2005 off-Broadway revival. Let's cut the crap, though: if Hurlyburly was put on by a bunch of nobodys, would anybody really care? 

As early as 1998, Hurlyburly itself was considered dated, of value mostly as an actors showcase. Anthony Drazan directed the film, but most reviewers wanted to talk about either the stars or Rabe's writing. Frank Rich, in 1984, called Rabe "a dynamic chronicler of the brutal games that eternally adolescent American men can play." Stephen Holden, in 1998 and also for the New York Times, said the movie's thesis is that men vs. women "is only an offshoot of a larger and more deadly war: the one waged by men against themselves."

I think I'd tolerate Hurlyburly better if I had a sense of Phil, Eddie, and Mickey before things went to shit. I'm not saying that I want to see a time before Mickey looked down on Eddie and Eddie did the same to Phil. It's implied that those feelings have been there from the start. But when did they stop being latent?

"No, Eddie, what I'm saying is that, unlike you, I never lied to him."

"... You never loved him, either."

"Right, Eddie. Good taste has no doubt deprived me of a great many things."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "I can't stand it when she cries." "That's no reason to have a kid."

-- Box Office: Grossing $1.8 million on a reported $4 million budget, this never had a wide release.

-- Awards Watch: Penn lost the Independent Spirit Award to Ian McKellen for Gods and Monsters. The original Broadway production was nominated for four Tonys, winning one. Judith Ivey (Bonnie) beat Sigourney Weaver (Darlene) for Best Featured Actress in a Play. William Hurt (Eddie, also considered a featured role) and the play itself lost to Barry Miller and his play, Biloxi Blues.

-- Critic's Corner, the film and/or play: "For all Rabe's sound and fury, he doesn't come up with any profound revelations about the human condition to match the intensity of his ranting and raving, or to make up for the fact that, to put it mildly, most of his people are off-putting in the extreme without being very interesting," Kevin Thomas wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

-- Critic's Corner, the actors: "Penn ... burrows so deeply into Eddie that he almost vomits his character onto the screen," Holden wrote. Thomas: "You can identify with Eddie's pain, and could even more so were Penn not required to do so much grandstanding." David Rooney, Variety: "Ryan plays effectively against type ... Paquin brings spark and intelligence to her first adult part." "The most amusing is Spacey," Roger Ebert wrote. "(He) likes to hold himself a little aloof from a scene, as if he were the teacher. ... We get the sense that (Mickey's) only visiting, while the others live in this purgatory."

-- Memorable Music: The score is still 24-24, a tie between original and non-original songs. Hurlyburly didn't score a point for Sheryl Crow's "There Goes the Neighborhood," which plays under the end credits.

-- Magazine Watch: The Feb. 2, 1998, issue of People ("Diana's Legacy of Love") and the February 1998 issue of Life ("Sleepless in America") are partially seen when Eddie and Phil argue in a grocery store. Later, the Dec. 6, 1997, issue of Billboard ("Chet Atkins: The Century Award") is seen at Eddie's.

-- Marquee Watch: Eddie drives by the Pantages Theatre, prominently advertising The Phantom of the Opera. That production had two runs at the Pantages in just over a year, finally closing on Nov. 15, 1998.

-- "Just because you are whatever the fuck you are doesn't make you whatever the fuck you think you are."

-- Next: The Parent Trap. On deck: Saving Private Ryan.