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Title:
Prozac Nation
Region:
One
Genre:
Drama
Stars:
Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs, Anne Heche, Michelle Williams, and Jessica Lange
Writers:
Frank Deasy and Larry Cross
Adaptation
By: Galt Niederhoffer
Based
On The book By: Elizabeth Wurtzel
Director:
Erik Skoldjaerg
Feature
length: 95 minutes
Extras:
Sundance Channel Anatomy Of A Scene Episode and Previews
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Spanish Language Dubbed Surround
Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions
Packaging:
Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 15
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 2004/DVD Release: 2005
Theatrical
Distributor: Miramax Films
Home
Video Distributor: Miramax Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
I
am not unsympathetic to stories about people dealing with disabilities that
include some form of mental illness. I think most people either know someone
close to them, if not themselves, or have daily contact with someone who is on
some form of antidepressant or other form pill designed to help people cope in
the modern world. Is it no surprise that now more than ever with inflation
rising faster than people’s salaries and jobs being exported overseas that
people are depressed? So much has changed in the last twenty years that even
Medical Doctors have a harder time earning a living than the generation before
them with the rise in insurance costs as well as other barrels of red tape. When
I was a kid Doctors had private practices. These days you are more likely to
find four or more sharing a practice because of the cost. Twenty years ago it
seemed if you had a degree in some form of computer science you were guaranteed
a lucrative and steady career, but many information specialists are finding that
the amount of money they thought they would earn is not at all what they
expected. A college degree is not what it used to be either. Colleges are not
employment agencies, but I know quite a few people who earned degrees in
specialized fields and they either could not find a job in that field of study
after graduation or could not afford to live independently with the salary they
were earning from working in their field of study. So it is not surprising that
chances are whatever you are studying right now if you are a student will not be
the vocation you will end up earning a living in. Sometimes it works out for the
best, but other times it leads to misery. The
most ironic truth of all is experience counts more than formal training in an
academic environment. There are plenty of people working on jobs people go to
school for and these people working in these vocations simply got lucky and fell
into their careers.
The
fact that young people as well as older people are taking prescription drugs or
using alcohol, marijuana, and or other drugs as a form of self-medication is not
shocking to me at all. So when I sat down to watch “Prozac Nation” the first
thing that went through my mind is what is so different about this woman’s
life that I and probably lots of other people haven’t already seen or maybe
even experienced personally? Truthfully, I have never read Elizabeth Wurtzel’s
book, but I suspect there is a lot more insight there on paper that somehow gets
lost in translation on the big screen. To be blunt, I feel like if this woman as
a character in a movie exclusively was not a Harvard student or a student in a
school that has that kind of notoriety, no one even care and the movie probably
would have never got made. I mean I bet we could go to NYU or City College and
find a bunch of guys and girls with the same story, but it would not make all
that big of an impression on us because it neurosis is almost an expected part
of life that is marketed as being benign, but as inevitable as those saccharine
pharmaceutical commercials with a bunch of smiling faces and a ton of blink if
you miss them disclaimers. To be blunt, the movie “Prozac Nation” doesn’t
really get interesting until the last five minutes, but everything before that
seems like a great big “so what?”
I’m
not a cold person, but I just do not see anything in this film that I have not
seen before except for Christina Ricci sitting nude on a bed at the beginning of
the film and you know what, I’m sure there are people out there that have
already seen that too. If it weren’t for her at times over-the-top dramatics,
I’d say Jessica Lange delivered a far more impressive performance than almost
everyone else in the film and they all seem at times like they’re on meds or
need them. The worst casting is Anne Heche as the psychiatrist Ricci’s
character sees. Heche seems like a robot. I thought batteries were about to pop
out of her back at any moment as if she were some radio controlled automaton.
Maybe this film might have been interesting had it been released ten years ago,
but as far as I’m concerned “Prozac Nation” is just a retread of something
all too common and all too late to generate any real surprise or empathy.
Miramax
Home Entertainment’s DVD edition presents “Prozac Nation” with an
anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio that preserves the manner in which
the film was exhibited theatrically as close as possible for home video users.
There is a fine grain throughout the film that I’m not sure if it is a result
of the transfer or the intention of the filmmakers. A front heavy English Dolby
Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack is encoded onto the DVD as an option along with
a Spanish Language Dubbed Dolby Surround Soundtrack and English Captions and
Closed Captions for the hearing impaired.
The
Sundance Channel’s “Anatomy Of A Scene” (19:44) and some letterboxed home
video previews for “Cursed” and “Dear Frankie” (3:56) presented in 5.1
audio are the only bonus materials to be found on the DVD. The menus are all
standard interactive still frames that are easy to navigate. Perhaps I’m being
too harsh, but I honestly didn’t find this film adaptation to be novel at all.
“Prozac Nation” is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline
courtesy of Miramax Home Entertainment. Now don’t forget to take your meds…
©
Copyright 2005 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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