Less than Zero

Less than Zero is an uninteresting adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. I ask myself whether exciting films can come out of the author's books at all, which are all about rich, unhappy and mentally unhealthy people whose trivial lives are depicted. Somehow they do not really concern the reader / viewer.

Clay, Blair and Julian, who are the epitome of L.A.'s rich and beautiful youth, are to be parted after high school, as Clay is going away to university. Six months later a lot has changed when Clay comes home for Christmas. His girlfriend Blair has in the meantime been unfaithful to him with Julian. Blair is embarking on a modelling career, and Julian has gone to rack and ruin as a record producer. What is more, both are drug addicts. Blair, who has her consumption more or less under control, asks Clay to help Julian, who is far gone. Julian has been thrown out of his home and has run up a huge debt to the slick pusher Rip. Clay tries to help Julian, but it is too late.

In a slimy fade-out at Julian's grave, Blair promises to follow Clay to his university, having learnt from bitter experience.

Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz are rather bland as the couple, but Robert Downey, Jr. really manages to create a convincing character out of his drug wreck. James Spader is also worth mentioning as the slimy Rip.

The director has chosen to show the world of the rich as we are used to seeing it in various TV series: glamorous and shiny - in its editing, too, the film is TV-series-like. In my view it is the wrong aesthetic choice, for it is impossible to fully immerse yourself in a world you know perfectly well is the product of your own prejudices and Hollywood's own image machinery. Less than Zero does not change your perception, and neither its milieu nor its characters grip. Who said anything about the alienation effect?