The Adderall Diaries,
directed by Pamela Romanowsky
(R, 105 minutes)
In 2001, Stephen Elliott published a semi-autobiographical novel called A Life Without Consequences that told the story of Paul who, like the author, left home at 13, lived on the streets of Chicago for a year, was made a ward of the court and grew up in group homes and institutions.
Elliott experienced some backlash and wrote about it in his 2010 book The Adderall Diaries, a meditation on the ways we manufacture stories. It's an account of Elliott's coverage of a high-profile murder trial but also a story about the dark capacities of alpha males.
In Pamela Romanowsky's film version of Adderall, James Franco plays Stephen, a swaggering poseur who accepts a teaching gig at Columbia University, readies a book of short stories and embarks on a new memoir.
In the film, Stephen's first book is called A Part and was presented as a true story. So when the abusive dead father (Ed Harris) Stephen wrote about in A Part shows up at one of his book signings, gritty-authentic Stephen suddenly has a credibility problem.
It's not difficult to see what first-time director Romanowsky is trying to get at in this stunningly shallow movie -- it's all about the unreliability of memory and the lies we tell ourselves. But it feels like a lie itself, with Franco delivering a Stephen who is all flash and superficial charm.
In an effort to re-establish himself, Stephen latches on to the murder trial of Hans Reiser (Christian Slater) and encounters a New York Times reporter (Amber Heard) with whom he embarks on a sadomasochistic affair.
While Romanowsky gamely tries to negotiate the same structural tricks as the book, which employed the Reiser case as a base camp from which the author could depart and return, in the film it feels like a subplot despite the cinematic tricks that the director uses to try to connect the stories. Only occasionally do the stories resonate in any kind of harmony.
But it positively zips along. With a 105-minute running time, you'll be asking, "What the heck was that all about?" before you know it.
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MovieStyle on 07/08/2016