Matt Dillon is excellent as Henry Chinaski, author Charles Bukowski's literary alter ego, in this big screen adaptation of Bukowski's novel of the same name and some of his other stories.
The story of the film is simply Henry, a maintenance drunk, trying to remain employed so he can make enough money to allow him to write, the only thing that really matters to him. However the women, gambling and looking for jobs often get in the way.
Funny, sad and touching this is a zen-like meditation of a life lived on the fringes of society. Its a hard film to say more about since the film unfolds like a booze fueled slice of life. Its at times as if you've turned a camera on the people down at the local dive bar, but commented on by the smartest most literate guy in the place. You'd like to dismiss the witticisms as clever writing except that this was the life that Bukowski lived and wrote about.
I liked the movie a great deal but only up to a point. The problem for me is that the film seems not to really have a point. Its just a slice of life where things happen and continue to happen well after the film ends. Its not a bad thing, since thats the way real life is, but I couldn't seem to shake the nation that the film was trying to get to some point that never arrived. If I could compare it to say Robert Altman's Short Cuts (or several other Altman films for that matter) where the film takes these small slices of life and interweaves them and really never comes to any conclusion and never seems to be angling things into any direction in particular, here you have what is an extended slice of life but it seems to want to have a point, while at the same time not have a point, or it wants to mirror Bukowski's writing but be be something more.
Its frustrating. Its very good, but very frustrating.
The story of the film is simply Henry, a maintenance drunk, trying to remain employed so he can make enough money to allow him to write, the only thing that really matters to him. However the women, gambling and looking for jobs often get in the way.
Funny, sad and touching this is a zen-like meditation of a life lived on the fringes of society. Its a hard film to say more about since the film unfolds like a booze fueled slice of life. Its at times as if you've turned a camera on the people down at the local dive bar, but commented on by the smartest most literate guy in the place. You'd like to dismiss the witticisms as clever writing except that this was the life that Bukowski lived and wrote about.
I liked the movie a great deal but only up to a point. The problem for me is that the film seems not to really have a point. Its just a slice of life where things happen and continue to happen well after the film ends. Its not a bad thing, since thats the way real life is, but I couldn't seem to shake the nation that the film was trying to get to some point that never arrived. If I could compare it to say Robert Altman's Short Cuts (or several other Altman films for that matter) where the film takes these small slices of life and interweaves them and really never comes to any conclusion and never seems to be angling things into any direction in particular, here you have what is an extended slice of life but it seems to want to have a point, while at the same time not have a point, or it wants to mirror Bukowski's writing but be be something more.
Its frustrating. Its very good, but very frustrating.