Through
1970s small town America and a group of drug-loving screw-ups,
moves our anti-hero(adorably edible Billy Crudup), oft called
"Fuckhead" or "FH" by his eventual girlfriend Michelle(Samantha
Morton). This guy reminded me of my ex-boyfriend: a goofy, sweet
fuck-up who you can’t help love but who you really wish would
get his shit together -- this character might not have been as
funny, however, if he had.
At
its most basic, this is a story of a guy who goes to hell and
back, discovering love along the way in the form of a sweet junkie
girl named Michelle who helps him get there faster and whose life
he ends in the process. It's not really the plot that matters
here as much how you get through it -- via the hilarious, drug-induced
surreal antics of FH and his friends, your trip through their
stoned daily "realities". Jack Black (High Fidelity) steals the
show at one point as FH’s pill-popping orderly cohort. The
film is a funny string of hallucinatory moments that make you
feel high right along with Fuckhead.
The
last third of the film, after Michelle dies, revolves around Fuckhead
trying to clean up his life - he attends NA meetings and meets
more crazy characters -- a hobbling Holly Hunter, who's been a
widow more times than she can count, and a quintessential Dennis
Hopper, who lets FH give him a shave. While trying to brighten
his existence, he even gets himself a decent job (as a newsletter
editor for a local psych ward in which touching the patients is
part of the job) and learns to appreciate life beyond drugs.
