What the book deserves...

The book is meaningless. It is chocked full of lies and half-truths, and makes a mockery out of the very real pain, suffering and courage it takes to face one's addiction and go through recovery. This film is a perfectly apt adaptation of the book.

The director is either a complete moron (which I doubt) or he is a angry genius, preempting any efforts by a studio to waste time, money and human effort on this work of fiction, purporting to be non-fiction. I hesitate, seriously, over-analyzing this work, because any such efforts would sound pompous and pretentious. However, one takes absolutely nothing away from watching this film, which is precisely what one takes away after reading the book. Both are a meaningless, empty, waste of time, which makes it a perfect "homage" to Frey's literary flotsam.

I don't know if this is a real "movie" or some kind of hoax, but if it is the director got it very right. In point-of-fact The director has actually spent *too* much time adapting the book with this film. The only change I would make is making it longer (to match the waste it was to read the book - or don't make it at all) and change the color to puke yellow. Frey thinks he made fools of us all, but the only fool is Frey. The untold damage he has done to the efforts of doctors, former addicts and others to help shift the image of the addict from that of a lazy, worthless lout to a person suffering from a disease and in need of help is incalculable. Frey helps promulgate the myth that addicts are just "weak people" who can't tell a lie from the truth, attention-seekers that won't do anything but let you down over and over again.

Addiction is a vicious, life-sucking, soul-eating whore, which has devoured countless lives. It doesn't need to be sensationalized or turned into an action film. It should be portrayed as it truly is, which the masterpiece Requiem for a Dream by Darren Aronofsky did so eloquently. Hopefully this film will be the only picture ever made of Frey's inane driveling. Even this movie is too much attention paid to a work of trash.


"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus