Pretty poor

Care to elaborate? Which aspects did you consider unrealistic? What experience or expertise do you have that qualifies you to contradict this depiction? Which scenes were ridiculous?

We're still waiting for your grand explanations.


-- I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been

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So a movie based on a real person's diary with a gritty inexpensive look is unrealistic to you? And a young looking actor playing a young teen also bothers you? I suppose you go for the normal Hollywood casting of 30 somethings playing teens. I can understand someone saying they don't like this movie but to claim it is unrealistic is just ridiculous, I can't understand your thought process. What is a realistic drug movie to you then? "Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle"?

I didn't think it was necessarily an "unrealistic portrayal", but I was a little surprised by how heavy handed some aspects of the plot were.

For instance, when they are desperate for drug money and go into the bar, where they see their old classmate being interviewed on tv, talking about how he is on the way to playing college basketball next year. I understand what they were trying to say by putting this in the film, but, as I said before, it came across a little "heavy handed". Same goes for when they run into Juliette Lewis's character early in the film, when she is clearly has a deep habit. Then later on, the tables turn and she appears clean, and DiCaprio's character is now begging her for cash. Not much subtlety.

It seemed while watching this that a lot of effort was put into including the harrowing scenes showing the downfall from heroin, like the detoxing sequences and the part where he goes back to his mothers house (which I think were undeniably well acted), whereas a lot of the action around it was brushed over quite quickly.

Just my humble opinion. I still found the movie pretty good overall.

I can see the drug related stuff as being very real, and the acting of leo dicaprio was great in the movie, however the surrounding actors and scenerios really bothered me. I really did NOT like any of the characters, they were all just stupid and crass beyond where they should be, and were not likeable at all. Its also cheesy in some parts and as previously mentioned, it can be very heavy handed. Certain parts are great, others are... well, less than lol

As the other posters, I also don't understand your point of saying that it is a "unrealistic portrayal" Leonardo Dicaprio is doing one of his greatest performance, and I was seriously overwhelemed by his acting. What's more it's based on a diary (as the other said)and it was very difficult for the director to regroup all the characters in the diary to form 4 main characters, and in the end I think he did a very good job! The scenes are powerful and moving, with the death of Jim's friend, or when the band is hanging out in the streets of New York, how they gradually change to become addicted to drugs. The movie is optimistic at first, just four friends hanging out having fun, but in the end we are confronting another approach, how drug affect our lives, and how Jim is desesperatly trying to survive. The scene when he is insulting his mother in front of her door because he wants money is breathtaking!

while different from the book, alot different, I think this movie is awesome, whenever its on I cant turn it off...one of Leo's finest moments, and hes got quite a few of them..






Jim Carroll: Time sure flies when you're young and jerking off.