Review of The Lost Weekend (1945) by Kevin M — 01 Mar 2011

Groundbreaking bit of early Social Realism wears its good intentions on its sleeve but ultimately suffers from the limitations of being a Hays Code-era studio product: all the grittier aspects of the story must be sashayed around with euphemisms and double entendres, the Privileged White Man hero comes across as less of an Everyman and more of a spoiled whiny selfish vainglorious prick, and the shoehorned-in love story defies all logical sense. Why would a classy dame like Jane Wyman waste three years of her life twiddling her thumbs while her unemployed self-serving bum of a writer boyfriend gradually turns his liver into a pickled raisin? She doesn't seem to have anything to do outside of obsessively dote on our colossal dick of a protagonist, who is inexplicably drawn into a suicidal downward spiral due to his "impotence" at the typewriter, and presumably, in other situations as well.

It's so difficult to sympathize with Ray Milland's drunken sot because he's a complete egoistic waste of life who's so stuck on his perceived failings, so sorry for himself that he can't even see he's got it MADE IN THE SHADE. Not only does he have a perfect fantasy girlfriend, he also has an extremely well-off brother providing an apartment for him rent-free. But boo-hoo, he can't start on his fucking novel. He didn't become the next Hemingway, cry me a god damn river. Since he's too proud to become a journalist or an editor or an ad copy writer, he decides to drown himself in booze and wallow in self-pity.

"The Lost Weekend" reminds me of that episode of South Park where Randy decides he has alcoholism so therefore he MUST compulsively drink. The film was obviously written during a time when little was known about brain chemistry or genetic predisposition to addiction; the problem is simplified to an insulting degree. Alcohol is EVIL and if you have more than one drink per day you WILL become a destitute homeless wino. Your only salvation is to be a straight-arrow NO TOLERANCE Elliott Ness type of fellow. Instead of examining Milland's cesspool of a personality, he is instead painted as a tragic victim of circumstance, an otherwise brilliant, flawless writer sucked in by the incomprehensible power of rye whiskey.

Storytelling faults aside, Billy Wilder's direction is pretty much flawless, with gritty, razor sharp mise en scene and some delightful supporting performances from a game assortment of character actors. Milland's brief stint in a hospital Drunk Tank is horrifying and darkly, sardonically hilarious thanks to a downright brilliant (yet uncredited!) turn from Gene Ashley as a jaded, condescending Male Nurse. Would be that Milland stayed locked up in the loony bin, but his Mission Impossible escape not only defies credibility and plays havoc with logical issues, it sends him right back into his apartment for an agonizingly circuitous relapse.

Given his penchant for backsliding, the Happy Ending, occurring just minutes after Milland has purchased a revolver, written a suicide note and a Last Will and Testament, and said goodbye to Wonder Woman (obsessively hanging around his apartment like some kind of stalker), is downright ridiculous. Throwing a barely-smoked cigarette into a full highball of whiskey is a fine visual metaphor, but is it really that simple? After all, this is the same asshole who, scarcely an hour earlier, pawned Wyman's winter coat to purchase his Suicide Revolver and less than twelve hours prior had been so off his rocker as to be hallucinating vampire bats chewing on imaginary rats in the wall.

Miklos Rosza's lugubrious, brassy, Slavic sounding orchestra and theremin score is at its hysterical peak during this bizarre alcohol toxicity hallucination sequence, and so is the sensationalistic screenplay. If all it took to swear off the sauce was to remember the March of the Pink Elephants you hallucinated when you reached Bottom, as they say in AA, then there would be a lot less alcoholics in the world (and no need for Bill W.'s revolutionary Program). The film was obviously made for Middle Americans with little to no knowledge of the issue in question, and designed to congratulate the viewer who accepts its overly simplistic black-and-white view of an impossibly thorny and multifaceted Social Disease.