April 3, 2011
You... but on a REALLY good day - this is the tantalizing premise of this excellent thriller. Bradley Cooper is perfectly cast as hopeless loser Eddie Morra, a writer who spends his time sleeping or boozing and can't get a single word down on paper. He is dumped in the opening scene by his long-suffering girlfriend and then accidentally bumps into his ex-wife's brother who offers him a life-changing little shiny pill.
The pill allows him to access all parts of his much-abused brain, thus endowing him with the energy, confidence, and decisiveness to turn his life around in a matter of days. Honestly, wouldn't you? But of course there's a price, which I will not reveal except to say that the edge of the seat had made quite a dent in my rear end by the close of the movie.
Usually one says that a person scrubs up well, but with Bradley Cooper the opposite is the case. I saw him being interviewed last week on tv and in real life he is so golden and glowing and handsome and charming and charismatic, it was quite a shock to see him looking grey faced, dull-eyed and unkempt as the opening loser version of Eddie.
The story is more than a little Faustian, but much more relatable than Marlowe's flawed masterpiece, because the things Eddie decides to achieve with his new-found powers are things most people would actually want. Though he is deeply morally ambivalent, you do root for Eddie and suffer with him during those moments when he faces the prospect of losing everything. Some plot lacunae, but on the whole really really good - 8/10.
The pill allows him to access all parts of his much-abused brain, thus endowing him with the energy, confidence, and decisiveness to turn his life around in a matter of days. Honestly, wouldn't you? But of course there's a price, which I will not reveal except to say that the edge of the seat had made quite a dent in my rear end by the close of the movie.
Usually one says that a person scrubs up well, but with Bradley Cooper the opposite is the case. I saw him being interviewed last week on tv and in real life he is so golden and glowing and handsome and charming and charismatic, it was quite a shock to see him looking grey faced, dull-eyed and unkempt as the opening loser version of Eddie.
The story is more than a little Faustian, but much more relatable than Marlowe's flawed masterpiece, because the things Eddie decides to achieve with his new-found powers are things most people would actually want. Though he is deeply morally ambivalent, you do root for Eddie and suffer with him during those moments when he faces the prospect of losing everything. Some plot lacunae, but on the whole really really good - 8/10.
