Producer: Anthony Drazen, Richard N. Gladstein, David S. Hamburger
Director: Anthony Drazen
Screenplay: David Rabe
Director of Photography: Changwei Gu, A.S.C.
Editor: Dylan Tichenor
Starring:
Sean Penn - Eddie
Kevin Spacey - Mickey
Anna Paquin - Donna
Robin Wright Penn - Darlene
Chazz Palminteri - Phil
Garry Shandling - Artie
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David Rabe has written a play, and then a screenplay about two men trying to make sense of the shallow lives they lead, and another two men who are just trying to live their lives and not ask too many questions. There's no big action scenes, no guns, but it is a boy's film. I'm not saying that all men think the way they do, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a woman that would sympathise with any of the central characters.
Sean Penn is Eddie - spends most of his time sniffing coke, smoking joints or just smoking, while talking very quickly, using a lot of big words, and not often making sense.
Mickey, played by Kevin Spacey, is a guy who is always in control - even when he's ripped off his head on cocaine. He says he has feelings, but he certainly doesn't express them often. Despite his nonchalance, he is the most likeable male character.
Chazz Palminteri plays the lost, out of work, no talent actor who is actually a very violent man, subject to lashing out, but just wants to be understood by his best (possibly only) friend Eddie.
Garry Shandling makes up the foursome - in the role of Arty - carefree, sexist, non-committal, peripheral - the one-liner.
Making up the female roles, we have Robin Wright-Penn, Meg Ryan and a nearly grown up Anna Paquin, making her way in Hollywood, and best known for her Oscar-winning role in "The Piano".
"Hurly Burly" constantly asks through his characters - what are you feeling? Sean Penn's character does most of the asking - and it is his desperation to feel anything that makes him feel so lost. He desperately wants to love his girlfriend, and more importantly wants her to love him back.
The violent character of Phil, works opposite Eddie, and his stupid conversations filled with superlatives and many syllables are irritating when you have just seen or heard that he hit another woman.
For three quarters of the film I felt mainly wasted or irritation. The last quarter showed a little less shallowness, and hopefully revealed the true nature of the script. I say hopefully, out of a desire to give the film some credit.
The resolution that was achieved at the end was appropriate and meaningful. The reserved Mickey says, "I have my own feelings, and they get me by." Eddie, exasperated, asks, "What kind of friendship is this?" to which Mickey replies, "Adequate".
With the exception of Phil, they all do get by. The film is about having to take care of yourself, the unreliability of depending on other people. "Hurly Burly" is not groundbreaking, but despite it's depressing main text, I think there is hope in a little of the subtext.
The hurly burly of life always struck me as something more than what Anthony Drazen has presented us with in this film, but I guess everyone's hurly burly is relative to their own lives, and the world they themselves occupy.
"Hurly Burly" is out in video stores as I write, all around Australia.
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