Ed Harris, James Franco
“THE ADDERALL DIARIES” My rating: C+ (Opens April 15 at Standees Theatre)
105 minutes | MPAA rating: R
For a good chunk of its running time “The Adderall Diaries” looks like yet another drug-addicted-author-with-writer’s-block movie. And do we really need another one of those?
The upside is that if you stick with writer/director Pamela Romanowsky’s adaptation of Stephan Elliott’s 2009 crime memoir, it eventually pays off. Kind of.
Nestled in this tale of sex, drugs, self-righteousness and self-hatred is a sobering lesson about who we think we are and how others see us, about parental concern and parental guilt.
The question is whether your average viewer can hang on long enough to get to the message.
As the film begins writer Elliott (James Franco) is coasting on the fame of his last book, a searing examination of his childhood as the son of a brutal father, and an adolescence spent on the streets or as a ward of the court.
But at a public reading from the tome, the proceedings are interrupted by an angry man — Elliott’s father (Ed Harris) — who announces that contrary to the best-seller’s assertions, he is not dead but very much alive.
“I should be getting royalties for this shit,” he yells. “You people are all fools.”
Not only does Daddy’s unexpected appearance threaten Elliott’s credibility as a nonfiction writer, it sets the author on a downward spiral. His agent (Cynthia Nixon) has secured a big publishing deal for his next book, but Elliott now finds he cannot write.
Amber Heard
Seeking inspiration he gloms onto the notorious case of a suburban father (Christian Slater) whose wife has gone missing. Body or no body, the man is now on trial for her murder. His defense rests mostly on protestations that he’s a good father.
While watching the proceedings Elliott meets a newspaper reporter (Amber Heard) covering the case and they begin a romantic relationship fueled mostly by the abuse they endured as children. They discover a passion for S&M fantasies.
About the only healthy relationship Elliott has is with his childhood friend Roger (Jim Parrack), who shared Elliott’s antisocial youth (seen in jarring flashbacks) but now has settled down as a happy husband and father.
“The Adderall Diairies” is sincere but painfully grim. The acting is okay, and better than that from Harris, who starts the film as a spoiler and heavy and eventually emerges as a flawed individual worthy of compassion.
Mostly, though, this one is a shrug.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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