Starring Jason Schwartzman,
Brittany Murphy. Written by Will De Los Santos, Creighton Vero. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund. (R) 96 min. Opens May 9.
Jonas Åkerlund's spasmodic tour through Los Angeles' grungy
demi-monde of methamphetamine junkies calls to mind one of Salvador
Dali's most notorious quotes: "I don't take drugs -- I am drugs."
Likewise, Spun is less about portraying the addict's lifestyle
than forcing the viewer into the headspace of some poor shit who's been
tweaking for days and is heading for a total collapse.
Åkerlund,
a first-time feature director whose music-video credits include
Madonna's "Ray of Light" and The Prodigy's oft-banned "Smack My Bitch
Up," pulls out all the stops to achieve this end -- disorienting jump
cuts and reverse angles, outbreaks of raunchy animation, abrasive sound
design and a breakneck editing scheme that would awe Darren Aronofsky.
Too
bad Åkerlund's technical audacity far outstrips his abilities with
story and character. Based on the experiences of co-screenwriter Will
De Los Santos, Spun is a shambling, pockmarked picaresque film
that depicts a few days in the life of Ross (Jason Schwartzman), a
haggard college dropout who becomes a driver for the flighty Nikki
(Brittany Murphy) and a cowboy-hatted chemist known as the Cook (Mickey
Rourke). Åkerlund attempts to build sympathy for Ross -- who's so
fixated on a recent breakup that he forgets about the stripper
handcuffed to his bed -- but it's hard to care about the fate of anyone
in this lurid freak show.
Still, there's something endearing about Åkerlund and his cast's eagerness to appall, a quality that places
Spun not so much in the tradition of druggie movies like
Trainspotting and
Requiem for a Dream as Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey's
Heat and
Trash.
Simply put, where else are you gonna see Mena Suvari straining on the
toilet while John Leguizamo jerks off into a sock in the next room? Or
a poignant onscreen reunion for Rourke and his
Pope of Greenwich Village co-star Eric Roberts, seen here as a drug lord who has Rip Taylor's taste in toupées? Moments like these make
Spun the best kind of bad trip.