Quirky Comedy Delirious a Pleasant Surprise

Toby (Michael Pitt) doesn’t exactly have direction. Homeless in New York and with no real plans other than a somewhat ethereal desire to become an actor, the young man has few options and even fewer opportunities. But that changes the moment he haphazardly runs across small-time celebrity photographer Les Galantine (Steve Buscemi), the two forming a fragile quasi friend-slash-assistant relationship affecting both far more deeply than either realizes.

Michael Pitt and Alison Lohman get wet in Peace Arch Entertainments' Delirious

Things are fine for a while, but when Toby has a chance encounter with pop diva K’Harma Leeds (Alison Lohman) all bets between protégé and paparazzi are suddenly off. Soon the formerly homeless nobody with zero possibilities is staring in his own television series with a high-powered manager (a feral Gina Gershon) now at his beck and call. But Les isn’t happy for his former friend’s newfound success, if anything he’s devastated by it. With love and forgiveness blossoming all around him this photographer the world chooses to look down on suddenly has to make the hardest choice of his entire life, the health and prosperity of a kid he once called friend now dangling perilously in the wind.

The chances you’ll get an opportunity to see director Tom DiCillo’s latest independent human comedy Delirious in a movie theater ranges precariously someplace between zero and none. As of this writing, the film is playing in about five theaters in a couple of the theaters scattered throughout the country. This has wait-for-DVD written all over it, a quick trip to the Blockbuster bargain sale dustbin unfortunately the next stop this quirky little picture is destined to take.

Too bad, because eccentric, funny and even sometimes moving, DiCillo has arguably made his most accomplished and breezily entertaining feature since 1995’s Living in Oblivion (ironically also starring Buscemi and revolving around the film industry). Smart, perceptive and keyed into the dirty and annoying banalities that make some of the most profound friendships tick, it is also surprisingly emotional, the climactic moments (while bordering on being a bit too saccharine) causing me to tear up even as I fought away a laugh or two.

Not that there are not some rough patches. There are plenty of them, actually, not the least of which is Pitt’s somewhat spacey void bogging things down from time to time. While the actor has a smile which lights up the entire movie theater, much like in Last Days there is an emotional emptiness to his performance that’s a bit perplexing. DiCillo also still likes to paint in generalities far too frequently (a problem which sank works like The Real Blonde and Double Whammy catastrophically), some of the coincidences here feeling more like fluffy fairy tale then they do anything remotely substantive.

And yet, I didn’t have as much of a problem with these things as I normally would have. The relationship between Toby and Les is shockingly strong, and by the time their friendship started to twist on itself and begin its destructive decline I was actually kind of sad to see it go. Buscemi is also quite excellent here, the actor finding gut-shot and life-tearing corners within the man’s soul I wasn’t quite expecting. Along with his sublime work in Interview this is excellent stuff upon his part, the actor creating such an indelible impression I can’t imagine I would have enjoyed the film at all had he not been a part of it.

But it is the final which really won me over. DiCillo doesn’t do anything revolutionary, doesn’t take the story into uncharted territory or try to craft something different or new. The thing is, he doesn’t have to, Lohman (who actually has a nice little singing voice) and Pitt creating an ethereal bond that’s downright inspiring. Delirious is one of those cases where a good finish makes all the difference, the director supplying such a wondrously magical one here I probably couldn’t bad mouth the movie after seeing it even if I had wanted to.

Of course, I don’t want to, and even if it a bit slight and not exactly earthshaking an entertaining diversion is not exactly something to scoff to loudly at. I just wish you’d get the chance to see it in a theater like I did, because if more people took the time to do so then maybe we might actually get more intelligently crafted relationship comedies like it.

Film Rating:  êêê (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Delirious Theatrical Trailer