Bright Lights, Big City

Today's film is Bright Lights, Big City directed by James Bridges and starring Michael J. Fox and Kiefer Sutherland. I saw this film because I'm a fan of Bret Easton Ellis' books and Jay McInerney, the writer who wrote the book this film is based on, was part of the same literary clique as Ellis. Also, the film was free to watch on YouTube.

Michael J. Fox as Jamie Conway

If you're expecting a feel good light hearted comedy like Back to the Future, you're shit out of luck. This film is a comedy drama about a disaffected yuppie called Jamie Conway. He works a job he hates as a fact-checker for a highbrow New York magazine which in danger of losing because he is dragged along by his insufferably slick drinking buddy Tad Allagash (played here by Kiefer Sutherland) to nightclubs and parties late at night. On top of that, he is a habitual user of cocaine and is still reeling from his separation from his model wife Amanda (played here by Phoebe Cates) and the death of his mother a year previously.

Tad (Kiefer Sutherland), Amanda (Phoebe Cates) and Jamie (Michael J. Fox)

This film was easy to get into because it's a classic tale of a young man trying to find his place in the world and doing the juggling act of balancing work, relationships in the big city. Michael J. Fox pulls of a neat trick by making this potentially unlikeable character sympathetic. And the script, also written by McInerney, had some really witty dialogue and I laughed several times. The film didn't make a great impression on me, however. McInerney has a reputation as a voice of a generation but the film did not seem like a Catcher in the Rye for the 80's, it was just a movie about a week in the life of one miserable drug abusing alcoholic yuppie. This film gets a recommendation from me, but not a strong one.