Shrink

Shrink

104 Minutes

Believe it or not, there was a time when we were pretty confident that teachers had all the answers, cops were never crooked and doctors were never wrong about our physical and emotional well being. If your mindset still precedes the ’50s, wake up to Shrink where the Biblical proverb, “Physician, heal thyself,” takes on a new meaning, and Jesus is no more than a drug dealer.

Although Shrink is based on a story by Henry Rearden, writer Thomas Moffett seems to have transplanted the theme of his not-so-successful script for The Last International Playboy aka Frost, where the main well-known and wealthy character sinks into a dark hole following the suicide of a loved one and is brought back to his senses by a precocious, young girl. While the main theme is the same in Shrink, the strength of the performances, the beautiful photography and the perfect musical score clearly differentiate the two.

Director Jonas Pate taps great actors, including Kevin Spacey as Dr. Henry Carter, “The shrink of the stars.” Carter is sinking into an abyss of pot, alcohol and depression following the suicide of his wife. He has a difficult time taking Hollywood crazies’ problems seriously and has no desire to seek help, rejecting even the formal intervention of family and friends. Spacey delivers a credible portrayal of a psychiatrist who has lost all interest in daily life and confidence in his profession, drowning his guilt and woes in weed with seductive names like “pussy finger” and “toasty brunch” — a performance that is overtly reminiscent of Lester Burnham in American Beauty. Carter’s trusted friend and dependable drug dealer, Jesus (Jesse Plemons), unwittingly becomes Carter’s incompetent therapist. He also leans a little on Jeremy (Mark Webber), his step godbrother, who wants to lean on him because he is struggling as a screenwriter.

Weaving in and out of Carter’s office are an obsessive-compulsive Hollywood agent (Dallas Roberts), a narcissistic musician (Joel Gretsch) and his wife (Saffron Burrows), and a sex addicted actor (Robin Williams). But Carter’s personal breakthrough comes when his therapist father (Robert Loggia) hands him the case and file of Jemma (Keke Palmer of Akeelah and the Bee) whose issues of grief are similar to Carter’s. Because Carter no longer believes he can help others, he rejects the notion that he can provide relief for Jemma. Predictably, they help each other. Palmer is masterful as a somber teenager who retreats from life into movies. By helping Dr. Carter and facing her own life story, Jemma learns that all is not lost. In one of the final scenes where she and Carter are sitting outside talking, both on the road to emotional health, Carter asks Jemma “It’s never going to go away, is it?” “No,” she replies, “but we’re still here and that’s something.”

What bugged me about this film is that therapists are not at all likely to take a patient to the movies or drive a patient to doctor’s appointments and home, no matter how they might empathize with that patient’s situation. And they are certainly not likely to date a patient even if they no longer see that person as a client. Even psychiatrists have ethical standards and if they forget these rules they get sued or lose their licenses. And while this film is interestingly fast-paced, we are handed yet one more story where multiple lives intersect and at least in this film, most of the intersections and coincidences are frustratingly far fetched. The ending became fantasy as everyone’s turmoil is sorted out and tied up in nice, neat, happy packages.

by Jane Hruska