Another Day In Paradise - The Ultimate Dysfunctional Family

Sep

4

Another Day In Paradise - The Ultimate Dysfunctional Family

≡ Category: Comedy, Drama, Essential, Movie Reviews By Country, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Director: Larry Clark
Year: 1998

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

Another Day In Paradise is an important movie in a number of ways. It contains James Woods last great performance. (He’s still alive, and Woods probably still has the chops, but no one has given him a chance to set the screen on fire since then.) Far and away, it has Melanie Griffith’s best work. It showed that Larry Clark was a major director and visual stylist, and not just a one-shot deal with his incendiary debut feature, Kids.

Bobbie (Vincent Kartheiser) and Rosie (Natasha Gregson Wagner) are two screwed up kids, junkies and thieves from broken homes. We first see Bobby busting into a community college, looking for anything to jack. He’s heedless, making as much noise as an elephant. That works out about the way you’d expect.

Bobbie barely escapes with his life, and Uncle Mel (James Woods), a junkie and thief himself, is called in to patch him up. Ultimately, Mel recruits Bobbie and Rosie for his own crew, and their adventures in stealing and selling dope begin. Mel teaches Bobbie the ropes, but the only problem is that Mel is starting to lose it from drinking too much. He starts taking too many chances, and you know things are not going to end well.

Bobby and Rosie have lived such shitty lives that the outlaw life with Mel and Sid (Melanie Griffith) seems like nirvana in comparison. The foursome form an ersatz family. In a drunken moment, Bobby even calls Mel “dad.” Unfortunately, the abusive relationships Bobby and Rose grew up with make them vulnerable to Mel. We can see that he’s a disaster waiting to happen, but Bobby takes Mel’s abuse and protestations of love and friendship on faith, and why shouldn’t he? What other kind of fatherly love has Bobby ever known?

Another Day In Paradise has the stench of authenticity, and it’s not just because of the script by Christopher B. Landon, from the autobiographical novel by Eddie Little. Director Larry Clark has obviously taken advantage of the protean thespian skills of his two leads, Melanie Griffith and James Woods, by allowing them to improvise extensively. Together with his loose shooting style and natural lighting, this gives their scenes together a rawness and spontaneity like a slug of pure grain alcohol spat in your face.

James Woods is predictably fine in the role of Mel, with his motormouth inventions and vein-bursting intensity. Melanie Griffith wisely doesn’t try to compete with him. She comes underneath his performance. At first, Sid seems a little daffy, but you come to see that she’s stronger and more clear-eyed than Mel.

Natasha Gregson Wagner is impressive as Rosie. Somehow, she manages to suggest a young girl damaged by abuse, probably sexual, both in her neediness and her admiration of depravity. Vincent Kartheiser barely seems to be acting as Bobbie. It’s almost like Larry Clark just went and got a kid off the streets. The few times Kartheiser seems to “act”, it’s almost like a kid playing dress-up, but it works for the part. After all, Bobby is on an adventure. He’s a kid, he thinks he’s immortal, and you get the feeling that none of this is quite real to him, at least at first.

Another standout is Lou Diamond Phillips, in the performance of his career as a flamboyant queen who is as mean as a starving ferret. I don’t know where Phillips dredged up the ferocity he displays here, but it just goes to show that most directors just don’t know how to use him.

For me, the one questionable decision director Larry Clark makes is to use mostly soul music from the 60s to score his film. Oh, I believe Mel would dig these tunes, but do they accurately reflect the modern day outlaw mileau the film is set in? Are there really still juke joints out West like the one depicted in the film? That said, Clark’s taste in tunes is flawless — these are some of the greatest soul tunes you’ll ever hear, and they aren’t the usual, overplayed ones either. These gems are obscure. And the Bob Dylan tune that Clark uses to close Another Day In Paradise is just perfect.

In a way, Another Day In Paradise is an art film. It eschews Hollywood production values and performances in lieu of rawness and authenticity. But the resulting power of the images and performances, and the willingness of director Larry Clark to go for extreme imagery and ideas gives Another Day In Paradise that Trash Cinema spunk that I look for.

Another Day In Paradise is a film for the ages. Long after crap like Shakespeare In Love is revealed as worthless cultural detritus, Another Day In Paradise will entertain discerning audiences, and tell the truth about the outlaw experience.