Review of Less Than Zero (1987) by Todd J — 14 Aug 2007

Less Than Zero: My last attempt at watching this adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' debut novel ended about 45 minutes in when I decided that my time could be put to better use watching old Mike Tyson fights on ESPN Classic.

I've been curious to see if it was really as bad as it seemed at the time, and now that I've watched the whole thing, I really wish I would've sucked it up and finished it back in the day as my Freshman mind probably could've managed to find something positive about it.

It's almost as if the writing staff decided they wanted to take everything good about Ellis' story and replace it with fluffy, overemoted garbage. Boy, do they succeed! The first nail in the coffin (and the biggest) is the script, which abandons the novel's storyline, characters, and tone.

Instead of Julian remaining a vague thought in the back of Clay's coked out mind, he's up front and center, stealing his girl. And what's more, the two of them actually fight over her! In an Ellis novel, forthright action like this is useless, most characters often resorting to just doing more coke and watching Mtv.

The disaffected nature of the stories Ellis told when he was great are the most important parts of them, and when emotion comes through, it rings true because the paled nature of the characters is handled authentically.

These characters aren't vacuous; only James Spader's truly frightening portrayal of Rip (who is in reality a combination of about 3 characters from the novel) comes close to being a great Ellis-like performance, and unsurprisingly, the best scenes come straight from the novel (albeit in different contexts).

But anything digressing from direct line-lifting falls flat on its face. Comparisons aside, and it's still a ridiculously bad movie. I think it takes the rep the novel had of being "shocking" and tried to apply it to itself as well.

Only problem is, seeing a character smoking crack and freebasing isn't really the same. Also, the overt disgust at homosexuality is completely out of place in the story, and it totally cheapens the 2nd half of the story, which would've made a damned great film if handled right.

How ironic is it that the only book of Ellis' to be ever handled with any kind of competence (American Psycho) was also referred to as the most unfilmable novel ever written? * out've *****.