Liberal trash

Hedlund being the only appropriately casted charactered. Only one with the charm of the era. The rest was just dull Catcher Of The Rye wanna-be storytelling without much exposition that could've been narrated by the lead.

But they throw the lifestyle of debauchery and hope you libbies just eat it right up. Aaaaand it didn't quite work. You'd need an all-star cast and a lot more charisma to pull that off. You'd also need to change the duller settings and showcase the humdrum parts of the country in a shorten, more stylistic fashion. The work scenes can stay in.

From an artistic point of view, it had the canvas, it had a few of the paints, but the brushing by the artist just didn't sell it. Not even in a relating-to-humanity way the books of movies like this usually do. If there is a book about this movie, I guarantee you it's much better.

Some things are just left in print. You take a big risk when you insert the imagination the reader would normally color themselves. If you don't do it perfectly, then they will not like it as much. And you can't please everybody anyway. The reason stories like this do much better in print is because we digest the material in a much more appropriate manner. The way it's delivered on screen is the difference between a summer romance and a one-night stand.