Sympathy for Delicious

at first sigh, a religious movie. out of ordinaries rules of genre. in fact, precise portrait of society. a lot of problems in a honest manner presented. the homeless case, the artistic success, the healing industry, the faith, the miracle, the pain, the love's sense, the need of fame, the good intentions, the God will, each in a special way examined . a film who must see. as good occasion to discover pieces from another works about same problem. for the inspired script and for the good acting. for the questions. for the status of parable of film. for the image about every day reality. for the cold poetry of few scenes. for the silences. more than a good movie, it is an useful one.

Given the promising cast and the fact that this is a film directed by Mark Ruffalo, I was curious about 'Sympathy for Delicious'. Of course, there are many actor-turned-director films that turned out to be not great, like Johnny Depp's 'The Brave' and 'Sympathy for Delicious' disappoints. To start, the story failed to engage me. It tries to combine elements of spirituality and fantasy into a current day world of drugs, rock and roll and poverty but it simply does not work. The title character is not even remotely likable. Now movies with a hateful lead character could only work if there's something about them or their world that manages to draw the viewer in and this is obviously lacking here. Another thing that's missing here is humour. The supporting cast attempts to provide some but that's not enough. Christopher Thornton is passable at best and he's easily overshadowed by his co-stars especially Linney, Bloom, Lewis and Ruffalo. I doubt Thornton himself is too blame since the character itself is so one-dimensional. Laura Linney is there only in several small sequences but she provides awesome comic relief. Juliette Lewis is very good but she seems to get typecast. Ruffalo is terrific as the priest but if he does continue to direct hope he picks a more interesting subject.

Dean "Delicious D" O'Dwyer (Christopher Thornton) is a bitter paralyzed DJ who lives on L.A. skid row. Ariel Lee (Juliette Lewis) tries to get him to play in her band led by singer The Stain (Orlando Bloom). Nina Hogue (Laura Linney) is their sleazy manager. Father Joe Roselli (Mark Ruffalo) helps the homeless and tries to help Dean. When Dean discovers his power to cure, Father Joe pays him to cure the people at his mission. It quickly gets out of hand. A man offers to pay the mission $250k to cure his daughter. Dean is infuriated and wants to be paid himself as part of the band's show.

Ruffalo's directing is a bit chaotic. On the other hand, his acting is great and I love his work during the chaos of the healing mission. Orlando Bloom as the lead singer don't feel right. Juliette Lewis has the right feel. Christopher Thornton is not a normal lead actor but he fits this bitter character. It's an interesting idea and I like this movie until the trial. It changes the movie in a wrong direction just as it starts to pick up speed with a vibrant pumping energy.

"Listen please, you don't know what you did, you got the healing touch." After being shown the power of faith healing, Delicious decides to use what he has learned to become a world famous DJ. When fate steps in and allows him to heal everyone's problems but his own he must decide if he will use his gift for someone else. This is not a bad movie at all. Without being in your face with it, this is a fairly religious movie. This also presents a great question. If you had the power to help everyone but yourself could you do it or would you be to jealous? Great acting by everyone makes this an enjoyable movie to watch. Orlando Bloom is great in a wide departure from what he usually does. The fact that the lead actor is actually paralyzed gives his performance a dimension that would be lacking if the actor was only pretending. This is a pretty slow moving movie, but very much worth watching. Overall, a very good movie filled with great acting. This is another movie you must be in the mood for though. I liked it. I give it a B-.

Would I watch again? - I don't think I would

I was able to attend the premier at Sundance this year, and let me begin by saying, this movie riveted my senses. With strong performances by the cast, especially writer and star Christopher Thornton, the movie worked it's magic. I sat in awe near the front row, as Mark Ruffalo, the director, got on stage before the film began and gave a brilliant opening speech. Then the room grew dark and the movie started.

I'm writing this from the New Frontier located on main street, Park City. Two hours after the film ended, and yet i still find it hard to clear my mind of "Sympathy for Delicious." After the film finished and the audience gave a standing ovation, Mark, Christopher, and a large portion of the crew, climbed on stage to answer our questions.

Among the many questions answered, was the story of how it all began. Mark began by saying how he had been best friends with Christopher for the past twenty years, how they had studied together as actors in New York, and about Christopher's tragic accident seventeen years ago that rendered him a cripple. Then Christopher took the mike and told us of Mark's pressuring him into writing a movie based on his own character and experiences. This began a ten year trek to getting the film made. The numerous rewrites and financial difficulties it went through were astounding, yet they persevered and finally succeeded in making a masterpiece.

If you haven't yet viewed this movie you're missing out on something great. Not only does it supply emotionally gripping characters but also a wholly original script. And let's not forget Mark's directing, which in itself is a powerful debut.