Sunday, July 15, 2012

Christiane F.



Christiane F. is a miserable movie, as you can probably tell pretty well from the trailer above. But for whatever reason, I really wanted to see it, and thus dragged my reluctant dad along to a showing at the York Theater. He knew what we'd be in for, but I guess I either knew and didn't care, or didn't believe it would be torturous.

And I'm not calling it torturous in any good sense of the term, as in, it's torturous, but has to be because it's such a real and important subject. The thing with drug movies is, you only ever need to see one. They're all the same: Drugs are awesome, but then they're not. Someone dies, someone tries to get clean. Will they stay clean or relapse? Throw in some gruesome cold turkey scenes, and you've got yourself a drug movie. EVERY DRUG MOVIE.

This one was based on a book that was actually a true story, and I'd eventually read the book, too. It's pretty much as miserable as the movie is, without the added benefit of a musical appearance by David Bowie.



I will say this about it, though: Natja Brunckhorst, the young German actress who plays Christiane, and who was only 14 at the time, is pretty good. I mean, perhaps it's not that hard to play strung out and vomiting, but she really knocks it out of der park.

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