Review of The Lost Weekend (1945) by J M — 12 Jan 2008

Billy wilder adapts a much less moralistic perspective to interpret the tumultous mental odyssey of an achoholic in "the lost weekend" which gains the academy award of best actor for ray milland.

The tale whirls around don (milland), a former burgeoning genius writer who cannot shake off his creative block, drowned in the bliss of binge without hopeful redemption despite his patronizing brother and selflessly nuturing girlfriend(wyman) are continuously reaching their aiding hands to him. now don is left alone in the weekend due to his drunken neglectance to partake in trip of rural holidays with his sibling. what would become of him then? in this seemingly tormenting long lost weekend?

What differentiates "the lost weekend" is its audacity to reveal the brazen pleasure of being alcoholic, under the analytical description of an eloquently literate protagonist who bares his sins as if they're badges. as he remarks to the bartender, "please let me keep my vicious circle" which means the wet spot of a glass of liquor. this drunk has a deviant sense of humor to exhibit his reveries of booze life, and he even amuses himself with the assumption of publishing a book called "the bottle"...but he's also self-aware enough to perceive the severe guilt inside him, and he rebuffs everyone who shows a concern about him, especially his loving girlfriend, and selects the road of self-caused doom aloofly instead.

Don is a character who could arouse audience's emphathetic compassion. even as a degenerated drunk, he remains a dignity of his own, such as the scenario that he commit thievery to pay for his booze, he obtains just enough amount from the lady's purse and even replaces the partial lost sum with a carnation, footnoted with his comment "this is a flower for a kind lady"...also this naivety makes him an adorable character worthy of pity. the flick also takes a gloomily shady angle of macabre deliria brought by overdosed alcoholism by baring the merciless side of hospitalizing in the asylum, but don still insists on "no postcard to the family" for the sake of his residued pride. as don is haullucinating over a bat haunting over his apartment when his gf breaks in the door, the discomfiture climaxes to the most unbearable humuliation that leads him to the approach of suicide to terminate his sadly worthless life....so..the ultimate question would be...to be or not to be?

The existence of don's patient girlfriend with enormous maternal love (also his fatherly brother) is a sign of alcoholic profile in freud psychology, and another sign is don's apparently pleasant temperant. he combines the traits of infantile fixation over parental depedence and people-pleaser compliance....this is just incidental but wilder's direction makes it more of a repentant freewheeling diaries than a preachy melodrama on alcoholism despite this issue is dated since people nowaday are too hectic on resisting much more violatile substances. there's also something unique about the music score, everytime when the demon of alcoholism possesses don, the background tune goes eerie with a jarring monotonic melody which is very adequately applied.

"the lost weekend" is another conquered territory for billy wilder after he makes the legendarily noirish "double indemnity"...this flick is a firmly steady proof of wilder's brillaint versatility.