Shrink (2009)

Elevator Pitch: Henry Carter is a Hollywood shrink who spends most of his time smoking hash round the back of his office. When required to do some work he is useless and on TV he tears up his own self help book. He has an eclectic selection of clients, including a talent scout, a young writer and a couple of film actors. He also takes on a pro-bono case of a young black student who has problems. His and hers are similar in that they involve family suicides. When the young writer steals the black girl’s case notes and writes a screenplay based on them which is well received things come to a head.

Content:  No sex or nudity except for one girl at a party, but almost continuous smoking of dope, and also the procuring of it as we see Henry buying his chosen brand from his dealer. He sits against a wall outside the back of his office, he sits in his car and he lied more or less unconscious next to his swimming pool. Meanwhile the writer gets to know the black girl and also the secretary of the talent scout, who goes to restaurants and eats. The thirty something actress goes shopping with her baby. There may be more but whatever, it is not memorable.

A View: Noticeably the general public liked this film a lot more than the small number of critics who saw it did. At that time surely we were unaware of Kevin Spacey’s story, he was right in the middle of his tenure at the Old Vic. Otherwise none of the characters is viable and the constant smoking of dope is more irritating than interesting. Possibly the only interesting point might be the appearance of Gore Vidal as a TV interviewer. I am not sure that this is even a watch while doing something else, because its sounds are annoying. I may need a new category, Uuuuuh!

Additional Info: The IMDb trivia contains the riveting information that the scooter which appears in the film is actually a moped because it hs a 50 c.c. engine.