I Melt with You/2011/Magnolia Pictures/129 min.
I knew I was in for a long slog early on in “I Melt with You,” a noir-infused drama about an annual reunion of four 40something yuppie buddies, when one of them delivers this clunker: “Some things never change.”
Granted, writer Glenn Porter might be trying to indicate how stilted these relationships have become, but the mere fraying of friendship is incidental in comparison with the dreary nihilism that unfolds.
The friends are played by Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, Rob Lowe and Christian McKay; Mark Pellington directs. There is no shortage of generic male bonding and trying to talk during their stay in idyllic Big Sur – all through the blur of heavy drinking and drugging, music blaring, natch. (The movie’s title refers to the Modern English song from 1982; it was rerecorded for use in the film.)
Through this blur of excess, which would be nauseating if it were a little less boring, their Important Issues emerge: a broken marriage and washed-up career, stale grief, unchecked greed, chronic womanizing (shocker!) and a shelved dream.
As we learn more details about their histories and their current situations, we see that whatever they were in college, they are now angry, mean-spirited, self-indulgent, entitled, whiny dullards. When their drawn-out and draggy self-destruction becomes literal, prompting a local cop (Carla Gugino) to start asking questions, it’s hardly much of a loss.
I’m not really that hard to please. A little humility from a few of the characters, a whiff of intelligence, passable writing or solid acting might have redeemed this film somewhat. But, with the exception of McKay (who played Welles in “Me and Orson Welles”), the acting is risible. For example, when Piven’s character is called a rat, he actually begins twitching his nose and baring his teeth.
“I Melt with You” doesn’t melt fast enough – it’s a chore to endure.
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