I Melt with You

Director Mark Pellington creates a vivid bond between four realistic characters, and in the process coaxes four painfully revealing performances. The actors really earned their paychecks here. And (not surprisingly considering that Pelington is a part-time music video director) the movie has some great songs -- by the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Stone Roses, etc. -- from the era in which the men might have first met.

But that's where the good stuff ends. Pellington's camera zooms in on the characters' bleary, ravaged faces and makes sure that their long partying binge doesn't look even the least bit attractive. That's fine, but the actual result is sad, pathetic, anxious, and depressing. And then, at the halfway point, things take a turn for the worse. If only Pellington could have found some kind of balance, offered some relief from time to time, then he might have had an intriguing study of middle-aged men in crisis instead of this grim, often ludicrous cautionary tale.