***WARNING: POSSIBLE QUASI-SPOILER IF YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT THIS FILM IS ABOUT. I had never, ever heard of this film before I happened to catch it on cable recently. It starts off like some kind of hip, offbeat coming-of-age comedy about a guy from Pennsylvania who moves to Los Angeles. You don't want to believe it when, early on, the flash-forward narration says there are bad things ahead. The characters are too cool and too likable; you're pretty sure it'll all work out (whatever it is) and be a fun, light-hearted romp on the way. But this is a serious film about drug addiction, and there's really no place to go, except straight down to hell. Even so, it's an interesting ride up to a point--it's all pretty believable in a colorfully seamy way, and the acting is great. At the very end, there's a pointless revelation about the Pennsylvania guy's past--maybe it explains some things about the character, but it detracts from the "message" (if there is any) that almost anyone could get slowly sucked into a destructive lifestyle. There actually isn't much of an end, which is perhaps true to the film's realism, but is cinematically unsatisfying. Nevertheless, this movie is a neat little flawed gem to discover in the jungle of cable TV.
Review of Broken Vessels
