a SIFF 2009 review
Well-Acted Shrink Not Very Therapeutic
Dr. Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) is Los Angeles’ top celebrity shrink but to look at him you would never know it. Morose, disheveled and an outright pothead, the guy can barely make it from hour to hour let alone help other keep their own crap together and the irony no one seems to notice this fact is definitely not lost on the mental health therapist.
Kevin Spacey sleeps it off in Roadside Attractions' Shrink
After his celebrated father, also a psychiatrist, Robert (Robert Loggia) forces him to take a troubled young High School girl named Jemma (Keke Palmer) on as a pro-bono client things slowly start to come into a new focus for Henry. Her personal tragedy forces him to finally stare into the abyss of his own, working with the youngster an opportunity even his own debilitating depression might not be able to derail.
Shrink is another one of those coincidental sprawling L.A. dramas featuring a bunch of disparate characters who through chance and circumstance end up unexpectedly touching one another’s lives. It’s Crash on the psychiatric couch, all of it centered around a man so lost in his own skin spending time with him is about as pleasurable as walking on broken glass barefoot.
What’s funny, as harsh as that sounds I actually was relatively partial to director Jonas Pate and writer Thomas Moffett’s motion picture. It moves well, has some strong emotional moments and is extremely well acted by Spacey and Palmer. The film also features a bunch of nifty little character turns from an eclectic cast including Robin Williams, Pell James, Griffin Dunne, Saffron Burrows, Jack Huston, Dallas Roberts, Gore Vidal, Laura Ramsey and Mark Webber, the lot of them putting forth a solid enough effort I was relatively impressed.
But as nice as all that it is, the storyline itself can stretch credulity to the breaking point. The coincidences here are at times beyond description, the last few minutes in particular offering up a whole slew of whoppers that had me unintentionally giggling under my breath. It also doesn’t help that, while showing restraint for the majority of the film, Pate and Moffett suddenly slather on the melodrama during the lead up to the climax. It’s annoying, but even more than that it’s unnecessary, because as silly as some of the coincidence are and as glum as the central dramatics get up until that point I was more than willing to give the movie as a whole a relatively polite pass.
Spacey really is good here, though, I must admit. Sure this is the type of role that just screams, “Oscar bait!,” but that doesn’t make the award-winning actor’s fearless digging into it any less impressive. He devours Henry, digs right into the soul of the psychiatrist, and as a one-man show Shrink almost deserves a recommendation on that front alone.
Not that I can give it one. While there are nifty bits and good performances (Williams, in particular, stands out which is sort of a surprise) I feel like I’ve seen this movie about twenty times already. I also don’t particularly feeling like I’m being beat over the head with emotional symbolism or that I’m being grotesquely manipulated just so I’ll shed a couple of tears, and that’s the reason I’m saying Shrink is a session where the only therapy involved was the feeling of relief I got when it was finally over.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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