I am sure that most of you think I need years of therapy and you would probably be right. However I have made peace with my inner demons and now we work together. I could go on with the bad one liners that you see on everything from T-Shirts to coffee mugs. One of my personal favorites is

I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.

This is not about the sad state of my mental health but instead about a film I just watched called SHRINK. Released this year from Ignite Entertainment/Productions, Ithaka Productions and Trigger Street Productions.

From IMDb

In Hollywood, people in need revolve around Dr. Henry Carter, a shrink: Jack, an aging star wants permission to cheat on his wife; Shamus is a director who’s a cokehead; Patrick is a high-powered germophobic producer; Jeremy is a young writer looking for a break; Jemma, a high-school student, is skipping school; and Kate is an actress facing her mid-30s. Henry’s wife recently died; he’s grieving, blaming himself, smoking lots of pot. Henry’s friends try an intervention; someone steals a patient’s file from Henry; Patrick’s assistant, the pregnant Daisy, sees promise in Jeremy’s work; and, Jesus, Henry’s drug dealer, sells him some potent weed.

Not only do we follow the life of Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) but also the lives of those around him. Each has their problems and their own crosses to bear. As a shrink he tries to help them through their problems while burying his own one joint after another. Let me put it this way in the film opening you watch him smoke what is supposed to be roughly 6 joints just to get to the office and then he ditches out behind the office building for one more. This is what leads to the intervention in which Spacey delivers yet another flawless performance and it is in this scene where we see the real depth of his character and just how truly fucked up he is.

You see Henry is well known not just as the shrink of the stars but he also has written a bestselling book HAPPINESS NOW, which is just the opposite of what Henry feels. It is through his dealings with his patients and their problems that he slowly starts to recognize his own.

This film is full of great characters. When watching a character driven film like this you have to expect certain things. First and foremost is a slower pace driven by dialog and non verbal communication. It is all about how things are said and the expressions and body language of each character. It speaks to who they are and what they are going through. It is these subtleties that give the characters depth and bring them to life. I am a big fan of character driven films and by my standards this is a great example of what a character driven film should not only look like but what one should feel like. Some of the best characters are the ones that draw an emotional investment from you even if you don’t know it is happening. By the end of the film you feel for the individual characters and what they have gone through and somehow you have made a personal connection with 2 or more of the characters. If it is only one than it better be a small cast and it better be one hell of a character. Anything else is a waste of my time.

SHRINK did a great job of pulling me in and making care about these characters even if I was only half watching at first. After the first few minutes the half watching was over and I was glued in. For me that is the true test of any film or even a TV show. I multitask quite bit. I am often watching TV or a movie and doing something else at the same time. When a film or a TV show actually gets me to stop multitasking because I am that interested in what is going on then you know it is something worth paying attention to. I am the king of “Ooh! Something shiny.” SHRINK shrines bright and does not fade from beginning to end.

This is not a film for everyone. If you are not into slower moving character driven films then do yourself a favor and pass this one by as it will be lost on you. If that just made you feel uncomfortable then it was aimed at you and yes it was an insult as much as I am sure debating film with you would require half my attention.

For the rest you, I would definitely recommend SHRINK which by the way is available to watch on your desk top from Netflix.

Each and every character is given life by the actors who all delivered wonderful performances that made you actually care about each and every one of them. It is rare to get that of delivery from an ensemble cast but when leading the way you have Kevin Spacey and Robin Williams, you can’t help but to get rare performances from the people around them. In closing I would like to say that it is roles like this that made me a Kevin Spacey fan and after all is said and done Spacey is still one of the all time greats at what he does and one of actors that will get me to watch something just because I saw his name in the cast.