Shrink

This movie is interesting, well written. If you enjoy explosions and action, this movie is not the one for you. Just skip this listing, do not expect this movie to stimulate you. It is like American Beauty and look and behold, who was one of the stars in the movie, he is here too, Kevin Spacey is making another dramatic appearance. This is his speciality. Not sure why this movie does not have monetary support, it just seems a little low key. Perhaps studios are only focusing their efforts on movies like the stunning Transformers II, movies that have more of a guarantee to bring home the bacon.

Spacey plays Henry Carter who is a recognized psychologist. He has some interesting conversations but this is normal, we expect this. He is not happy even when he has an ongoing and healthy practice. He smokes marijuana in remote urban areas with a typical young week seller and many times alone. His friends realize he is experience severe depression. When they confront him and inform Carter that they have arranged a room for him at a reknown treatment clinic, he is furious. He is too good to be there. He is too good to not be able to handle the problems and advice he commonly advises to other people-his clients. Carter's father is there with Carter's close friends and Carter admits his wife committed suicide. Everyone else thought she was in a fatal car crash. Now they know why he is experience internal troubles.

This movie also has a relation to a film like Crash. It bounces around alot with many unrelated characters and situations.

Carter's home is a pig pen. It needs a revival that is for sure. The young kid who he buys weed from is funny. Who is this guy? He is like another Napoleon Dynamite. He is Jesse Plemons
and his name is Jesus. He is the man with the weed.

Another character, one that has some depth is Keke Palmer who plays Jemma. She has having severe issues with teenage life. She is smart but for some reason is not coping well with the world. She has issues with her family, it does not seem like she has a mother to speak too. That is a strong missing bond. Carter is her relief and he barely wants to see her. His intuition instantly tells him that she probably has a real case, urban issues that he knows little about. He is being a wimp at first but he realizes after speaking to her that he can probably learn as much from her as she does him. Jemma wants to see movies with him as a coping mechanism. Carter has to respectfully decline.

What actually happens is that Carter is slowly gaining strength to deal with nagging innate matters that were slowly leading him down an abyss. Jemma is his savior. Her departures centralizes things for him, they make him realize he has the ability to help others and that he is not the only one with revolving demons to deal with.

Robin Williams is Holden, His character is goofy, he is a sex maniac. Or someone with terrible morality issues.

Another character going through a spin of things is Mark Webber, named Jeremy. Jeremy hangs out with Jemma and uses her life story and reflections to write a script. Webber is also friends with Carter despite a sizeable age difference. Somehow this script is read by her, this is a stretch of the imagination. But it is titled with her name and her travails are described in this script. Basically he is trying to enrich himself off of her reality. He should have titled it differently atleast, not with her first name.

This movie is devoid of music. It does have some attractive faces unlike 500 Days of Summer but the latter had an amazing musical score.

There is another charactor plot this movie dives into. It is of a wachy and germophobe played by Dallas Roberts. He is a Hollywood agent, who works hard to put his clients in the best possible films and situations. Patrick is his name, he is a prick but he has the working ability and multi tasking skills to shake up Hollywood. He devotes himself to his task and that is why he matters. But this does not make him a good person, and being successful on earth does not guarantee anything after he passes.

The script called Jemma passes the mark set by Patrick. Patrick actually decides to produce or back a script with depth.

Holden gains some control of his urges and Carter seems a little more level headed.

There were a couple more character plots that I left out. Not all of them merge at the end but they do not have too. This movie is more entertaining than 500 Days of Summer just because of the range characters and subplot. But I would not recommend either to most folks. Both of these films are absolutely ten times better than Cage's Wicker Man.

I recommend this movie two stars.**