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| Kevin Spacey lies passed out on a lounge chair by a Hollywood Hills pool on this mellow-colored poster for Jonas Pate's Shrink |
A celebrity shrink in Los Angeles isn't worth much himself lately, addicted to pot after his wife's suicide, as he meets an African-America teenage girl, whose mother also offed herself.
Shrink is written by Thomas Moffett (The Last International Playboy (2008)), with Henry Reardon contributing story elements, and directed by Jonas Pate (The Grave (1996)).
Although there are things that connects the many characters we are introduced to in Shrink, it remains unclear why we are to meet and follow them all, - except for the fact that the film attempts to paint a collective portrait of Tinseltown. And a repulsive, cold and severely unloving portrait it is. But also one that is neither particularly amusing or seriously relevant. - Besides, who says that we even want to know about it, if the LA entertainment business is really as rotten as Shrink proposes?
The film co-stars Robin Williams (Being Human (1994)), and in light of his illness-provoked suicide in 2014, Shrink is even less pleasant to watch; his scenes are almost painful to behold, so far are they from the past greatness of his career.
Kevin Spacey (Margin Call (2011)) does a good job of playing the alienated, depressive title character, but Shrink fails to get at the core of its issues - the suicides - although it is them, and their consequences, which it seems should have been the film's main occupation.
Keke Palmer (Scream Queens (2015-16)) is also good as the teenage girl. Jack Huston's (The Yellow Birds (2017)) character Shamus seems likely based on Irish movie-star/ladykiller Colin Farrell. A couple of his scenes with Williams are out of tone with the rest of the film and too exaggerated to seem realistic.
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Cost: Estimated 5.1 mil. $
Box office: 303k $
= Box office disaster (returned 0.05 times its cost)
[Shrink premiered 21 January (Sundance Film Festival, Utah) and runs 104 minutes. Shooting took place in Los Angeles, California. The film opened #59 to a 16k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #40 and in 27 theaters the following week and grossed 189k $ (62.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Romania and Latvia, each with 31k $ (10.2 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this one. Pate has gone back to directing for TV after the film and has stayed away from features since. Spacey returned with a voice performance in Moon (2009) and a physical performance in The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009). Shrink is rotten at 27 % with a 4.57/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Shrink?
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