I’ve been wondering, what happened to all the alcoholics? Where have they gone?
Not the people on the park benches drinking cheap brand-less beer, I’m talking about the highly-functioning alcoholics, the Hemingway’s of our world, the Mad Man business executive types who spend long afternoons drinking bourbon. What I’m discussing is Peter O’toole as Jeffrey Bernard in ‘Got a Drinking Problem‘ or Brendan Behan when he stated: ”I am a drinker with writing problems.” Or am I nostalgic for a time of great alcoholics, that really didn’t exist? Not in the way I imagined at least.
We see the couple Drake (co-writer T.J. Miller) and Lindsay (Lizzy Caplan) stumble through intoxicated situations. It is interesting that they function as two equally drunk drunks, to see a relationship in which both have frequent black-outs, to paraphrase from the film. Off course this way of living can’t sustain itself and at one point one of them has to opt out, either from the relationship or life. And when that happens we are left on a note of contemplation, does sobriety necessarily mean the end of fun? And if so, is that a good thing?
Successful Alcoholics from Jordan Vogt-Roberts on Vimeo.
The film written by Vogt-Roberts and Miller, premiered in 2010 at Sundance and made a round on the festival circuit, notably making a stop in Texas at SXSW.
*The concept of independent film taken at it’s broadest conception.
