Review of The Basketball Diaries (1995) by Katie S — 21 Aug 2008

I have no idea why i'm giving this three stars. I was interested from start to finish. I think I'm just trying to be harsher with judging movies and normally i'd give this three and a half stars but in my gut I don't feel that its earned it.

leonardo dicaprio gives a stellar performance here; he gives his all. One scene in particular involving his mother not letting him in the apartment near the end of the movie is one of the best acted scenes of desperation i've ever seen.

He really just pulls out all the stops. The whole cast did a really nice job. While I guess it would have been a little lifetimey to show his recovery I feel like that its sort of neccesary and felt very dissapointed when the movie essentially ends with "and then I was clean" without us getting to see how he got through that.

When he got addicted I felt like the movie was sort of the same scene over and over again. We didn't get anywhere and he just got worse and worse and while I know this is sort of the point it still felt a little redundant.

It's relatively easy to show why being addicted to drugs isn't good on screen but its a bit harder to show how someone can get through it in a believable, authentic, unsoapy and uncontrived way.

This movie decided to not even try to tackle that and it skipped it completely. Definitely worth seeing because it is interesting and has great performances by everyone especially DiCaprio but I can't give it three and a half because I don't feel right doing it.

glad I saw it though since i'd been meaning to for years now. And I really want to read the book.