To keep this review short, sweet and to the point, this film completely missed the point that the novel made. As a 25 year old, I consider the novel one of the defining works of my generation and I had hopes for the film adaptation to be remotely faithful to that. It wasn't. In all fairness to the plot, it has been a couple of years since I read the novel, but it is clear that much was discarded in translation with the intention to present the film in the light of an anti-drug piece. The novel however was far more nihilistic than that and focused on the banality life for the over privileged elite. As I recall, several elements were retained in the film from the novel, but it felt like two completely different stories. I'm generally kind to adaptations and remakes in regards to view them independently of the work in which they're based, but this one was such a let down that I had a hard time not yelling at the television. That said, the film itself, ignoring the novel as much as humanly possible, was pretty middle of the road. The storytelling was shallow and clear-cut with little left up to the imagination and aside from a young Robert Downey Jr and James Spader, acting performances were marginal. It would be interesting to see this film remade by a director (and screenplay writer) that actually retains the vision that Ellis painted so vividly in his novel, but until then take this film with a grain of salt and read the novel instead. I give it a very generous 6/10.
Review of Less Than Zero
