Prozac Nation

From her charmingly off-kilter appearance The Addams Family to her difficult and extremely convincing role in Monster, Christina Ricci has always been an interesting actor. A talented performer who has never really received the recognition she deserves, she is one of the few bright spots in this film. A plodding "true-life story" that fails to be anything like as insightful as it wishes it was, Erik Skjoldbjærg's Prozac Nation is based on the reflections of writer Elizabeth Wurtzel, and chronicles her descent into depression.

The plot goes something like this: Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wurtzel (Christina Ricci) has just won a scholarship which will allow her to go to Harvard, where her neurotic mother (Jessica Lange) hopes that she will be able to make a name for herself and be more successful in life than she was. All seems to be going well at first as Lizzie, whose passion is writing, wins recognition for her penmanship. Things take a downward spiral, however, when depression sets in and she begins turning to drink and drugs, in the process alienating her mother, her best friend and roommate Ruby (Michelle Williams), and her well-meaning boyfriend Rafe (Jason Biggs).


Prozac Nation was completed in 2001, but was pulled from distribution at the last minute by Miramax. A number of different reasons have been suggested from this, ranging from the notion that, shortly after September 11, audiences would not want to hear about the self-obsessed whining of a college student, to Elizabeth Wurtzel's "scandalous" comments about the aforementioned attrocity (she stated in an interview that it had no emotional effect on her, prompting all number of armchair pundits to condemn her as an insenstitive megalomaniac - something that should have been self-evident from her writing). Another popular theory is that former studio bosses Bob and Harvey Weinstein opted to sit on it because they didn't think it was that good. Four years later, it has finally made its debut on DVD in America (although it did show up in a handful of other countries prior to this), so there seems little point in debating over precisely why it has taken so long.

As mentioned previously, Christina Ricci is the cornerstone of this movie and one of its only good points (there are others, which will be discussed later). Put into production after she had played a handful of challenging roles (for example in Buffalo '66 and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) but prior to her groundbreaking work in 2003's Monster, she was still very much associated with the family films that had been very much a staple of her early career. Prozac Nation, therefore, would seem to have been something of an attempt for her to break out of the mould into which she had been placed. Credited as a co-producer on the film, this project was clearly something about which she felt strongly, and when she appears completely naked within two minutes of the opening credits ending (this scene, incidentally, is probably the only reason the majority of people have even heard the film), she makes it clear that she is willing to bare all, both literally and emotionally. It's a hard role, and it is not made any easier by the fact that the script fails to allow us to sympathize with her character.

We are told, at the start, that Lizzie is burdened by her mother's attempts to relive her life through her, pushing her to be everything she herself wishes she had been, and yet beyond the first few minutes, in which she enthusiastically tries to excite Lizzie about the prospect of going to Harvard, we are never really shown anything to back this up. Obviously, to properly understand depression and what it does to you, you have to have experienced it yourself, but I wish Skjoldbjærg had done something more to convey Lizzie's inner thoughts. We are never given a sense of her life being in the least bit difficult, which makes it hard for us to sympathize with her when she has a temper tantrum or storms off, ranting about the way she is treated. What's odd about this is that the film is chock-full of narration by Lizzie, which could have been used as a window into her mind, and yet instead she simply indulges in self-important psycho-babble - "How can I escape from the demons in my head?" and so on - which clarifies nothing. The film even ends with a text crawl referring to the wide-spread use of anti-depressants in the US, which does a remarkably heavy-handed job of attempting to make the film out to be some sort of insightful study of depression, which it is anything but.


With no window into the internal emotions of the characters, and Insomnia director Skjoldbjærg's photography surprisingly lifeless, we are reliant on the performances of the actors to carry the film. Apart from the aforementuoned Ricci, Jessica Lange gives a solid performance as her neurotic mother (although she does at times give way to melodramatic overacting - most likely a failing in the script itself), and Jason Biggs is bearable as Lizzie's boyfriend, although it's still hard to see him as anyone other than Jim in the American Pie films. Michelle Williams is not bad either, although she has very little to do. Likewise, Anne Heche is seriously wasted in the role of a psychiatrist, and judging by her performance her heart does not appear to be in it.

Ultimately, it's hard to recommend this film to anybody, since it has nothing particularly insightful to reveal to the viewer, whether or not they have experienced depression or known a sufferer. When films are delayed for as long as this, it's all too easy to become convinced that what is being held back is some sort of misunderstood gem or a groundbreaking masterpiece that has given the studio cold feet, but in this case the attention simply is not deserved. As such, Prozac Nation is perhaps worth seeing for Christina Ricci's impressive and dedicated performance, but it fails to entertain or be emotionally satisfying.


DVD Presentation

Buena Vista are such a lottery when it comes to transfers that it's completely impossible to predict whether or not a film will receive a reference quality transfer or an absolute stinker. Prozac Nation falls somewhere in between, with an anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer that shows some nice grain and an acceptable amount of detail, but suffers from some noticeable edge enhancement and overly soft wide shots. The colour palette looks fairly muted, but it would make sense to assume that this was deliberate.

The audio, too, is serviceable without being anything out of the ordinary. Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, the dialogue remains reasonably clear throughout, although raised voices have a habit of introducing distortion (particularly when Christina Ricci screams at the top of her lungs, as her character is wont to do). The rear channels might as well not be present, and although a film such as this doesn't exactly offer much opportunity to ear-splitting multi-speaker effects, the fact that they rarely even chip in for ambient effects or the musical score is disappointing. A Spanish Dolby Surround dub is also provided, as well as English subtitles.

A couple of previews play when the disc is inserted (these can be skipped), but the only extra of note is a perfunctory 20-minute Anatomy of a Scene featurette, which focuses on the birthday party scene which sees Lizzie swanning around drunk, much to the shock of her grandparents, before breaking down before her mother. The detail into which the featurette goes is commendable, but the analysis is almost as plodding as the film itself. Personally I was a little disappointed that no-one managed to dig out a trailer to make the package seem a little more complete.


Overall

Prozac Nation arrives on DVD nearly four years too late, and all the signs point to this having been a low-key release that was merely pushed out the door because, following the departure of the Weinsteins, all Miramax titles still in limbo were being cleared out anyway. The transfer and audio are adequate, the extras sparse, and the film... well... if seeing Christina Ricci naked would make your life more complete, then by all means pick up a copy of this. Myself, I don't consider that to be adequate compensation for the price tag.