"I Melt With You" is a play off the song of the same name by Modern English. But it's clearly a double entendre as the film is about to begin.
IMWY is the story of four middle aged men, each with their own personal crises that they hide under the macho swagger and attempt at youthful bravado with drugs and alcohol. The four of these men are all college pals reuniting for a lost weekend of sorts, gathering together at a beach side house out in Big Sur, California. What starts off as a fun weekend of excess, slowly turns into a sinister exploration of what it means to regret the mistakes we make in life. Richard (Thomas Jane) is an English teacher with one published book to his credit, who is trying to reprise the free spirited, artsy bad boy he clearly was in college; Ron (Jeremy Piven) is a family man and stockbroker with the forces closing in on him, from a career that may not be as legitimate; Jonathan (Rob Lowe) is a divorced doctor pocketing cash on the side by making illegal sales of prescription drugs and a relationship with a young son that's clearly going south; and Tim (Christian McKay), a man who made one deeply fatal mistake in life that may have damaged him beyond curing. These four college pals reunite in what may not be for the best turn of events.
Let me just say that "I Melt With You" is directed by Mark Pellington, a fairly underrated director who made the horror film "The Mothman Prophecies" and the domestic terrorism thriller "Arlington Road". Pellington may be onto something as a director, unable to unearth the sinister nature of what appears to be normal. "The Mothman Prophecies" was about an urban legend that people dismiss as myth while "Arlington Road" was about how a next door neighbor may not be as friendly as they appear. "I Melt With You" falls into similar territory: the idea of how a friendly reunion, has a more unspoken and deeply sinister nature to it, when the truth finally surfaces. While not going into great detail, the film takes a deeply dark turn midway through the film, that I didn't expect. This turn reminds me of a 1973 French film called "La Grande Bouffe" (The Big Feast) in which four middle aged men, all feeling that their successful lives have lead them to a hollow existence, decide to retreat to the countryside to eat themselves to death. Replace food with drugs and in a sense, you have "I Melt With You".
"I Melt With You" focuses on the themes of middle aged regret, which seems to have become somewhat of a staple in American cinema with the likes of films like "Sideways". However, this film is much darker and it's quite brutal in nature. The idea of four men who are long past their prime and their youth, halfway between youth and death, end up going on an epic bender of sorts in order to numb the pain in their souls. I look at this film and I think of my friends, and I hope to God that we don't end up like the four main characters in this film. If anything, this film might be a painful reminder of what not to become. Between the constant drug taking and the boozing, it's an absolutely brutal experience to watch these guys, all with their own pains, slowly spiral into something worse. During a party sequence in the film, the four characters find themselves in deep conversations with peers half their age, and in a way, representations of what they were like at that age, before family, career and responsibilities got to them. It's not a comfortable thing to watch.
The performances are all top notch and uneasy to watch at the same time. I think of Rob Lowe as happy-go-lucky Chris Traeger from "Parks & Recreation" and idealistic Sam Seaborn from "The West Wing". But he's the complete opposite of those characters. He's just a man, like the rest of the characters, slipping away on the fringes of life. Jeremy Piven has always crafted a career of playing the angry neurotic that he's performed well in films like "Very Bad Things" and "Entourage", and his character's descent into his own personal hell is something to watch. Christian McKay, perhaps the least well known of the cast, is effective as well: a sad man who may already be dead, except he may know it. Thomas Jane, whose career has not been as great as it was in the late 90's and early 2000's, is fantastic as well. We all know someone like Jane's character. Hell, I might be like him in some respects. But the four men take this film seriously as an actors piece, and they do it perfectly.
"I Melt With You" will slip into the abyss of the thousands of movies that get forgotten each decade. In a more ideal world, I'd like to think that it could be revisited as being a good film, under-appreciated in its time, like other films have often gotten that reception only later. This isn't a bad film by any means, but it's a brutal, nihilistic piece not for the faint of heart. I'd highly suggest for anyone who loves movies starring Marvel superheroes or Meg Ryan, to move on and find something that will be crowd pleasing. "I Melt With You" is like going to the dentist without getting the novocaine, and having to sit through the whole experience with that kind of pain, only in the mind.
IMWY is the story of four middle aged men, each with their own personal crises that they hide under the macho swagger and attempt at youthful bravado with drugs and alcohol. The four of these men are all college pals reuniting for a lost weekend of sorts, gathering together at a beach side house out in Big Sur, California. What starts off as a fun weekend of excess, slowly turns into a sinister exploration of what it means to regret the mistakes we make in life. Richard (Thomas Jane) is an English teacher with one published book to his credit, who is trying to reprise the free spirited, artsy bad boy he clearly was in college; Ron (Jeremy Piven) is a family man and stockbroker with the forces closing in on him, from a career that may not be as legitimate; Jonathan (Rob Lowe) is a divorced doctor pocketing cash on the side by making illegal sales of prescription drugs and a relationship with a young son that's clearly going south; and Tim (Christian McKay), a man who made one deeply fatal mistake in life that may have damaged him beyond curing. These four college pals reunite in what may not be for the best turn of events.
Let me just say that "I Melt With You" is directed by Mark Pellington, a fairly underrated director who made the horror film "The Mothman Prophecies" and the domestic terrorism thriller "Arlington Road". Pellington may be onto something as a director, unable to unearth the sinister nature of what appears to be normal. "The Mothman Prophecies" was about an urban legend that people dismiss as myth while "Arlington Road" was about how a next door neighbor may not be as friendly as they appear. "I Melt With You" falls into similar territory: the idea of how a friendly reunion, has a more unspoken and deeply sinister nature to it, when the truth finally surfaces. While not going into great detail, the film takes a deeply dark turn midway through the film, that I didn't expect. This turn reminds me of a 1973 French film called "La Grande Bouffe" (The Big Feast) in which four middle aged men, all feeling that their successful lives have lead them to a hollow existence, decide to retreat to the countryside to eat themselves to death. Replace food with drugs and in a sense, you have "I Melt With You".
"I Melt With You" focuses on the themes of middle aged regret, which seems to have become somewhat of a staple in American cinema with the likes of films like "Sideways". However, this film is much darker and it's quite brutal in nature. The idea of four men who are long past their prime and their youth, halfway between youth and death, end up going on an epic bender of sorts in order to numb the pain in their souls. I look at this film and I think of my friends, and I hope to God that we don't end up like the four main characters in this film. If anything, this film might be a painful reminder of what not to become. Between the constant drug taking and the boozing, it's an absolutely brutal experience to watch these guys, all with their own pains, slowly spiral into something worse. During a party sequence in the film, the four characters find themselves in deep conversations with peers half their age, and in a way, representations of what they were like at that age, before family, career and responsibilities got to them. It's not a comfortable thing to watch.
The performances are all top notch and uneasy to watch at the same time. I think of Rob Lowe as happy-go-lucky Chris Traeger from "Parks & Recreation" and idealistic Sam Seaborn from "The West Wing". But he's the complete opposite of those characters. He's just a man, like the rest of the characters, slipping away on the fringes of life. Jeremy Piven has always crafted a career of playing the angry neurotic that he's performed well in films like "Very Bad Things" and "Entourage", and his character's descent into his own personal hell is something to watch. Christian McKay, perhaps the least well known of the cast, is effective as well: a sad man who may already be dead, except he may know it. Thomas Jane, whose career has not been as great as it was in the late 90's and early 2000's, is fantastic as well. We all know someone like Jane's character. Hell, I might be like him in some respects. But the four men take this film seriously as an actors piece, and they do it perfectly.
"I Melt With You" will slip into the abyss of the thousands of movies that get forgotten each decade. In a more ideal world, I'd like to think that it could be revisited as being a good film, under-appreciated in its time, like other films have often gotten that reception only later. This isn't a bad film by any means, but it's a brutal, nihilistic piece not for the faint of heart. I'd highly suggest for anyone who loves movies starring Marvel superheroes or Meg Ryan, to move on and find something that will be crowd pleasing. "I Melt With You" is like going to the dentist without getting the novocaine, and having to sit through the whole experience with that kind of pain, only in the mind.