Drunks (film)
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| Drunks | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Directed by | Peter Cohn |
| Written by | Gary Lennon |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Peter Hawkins |
| Edited by | Hughes Winborne |
| Music by | Joe Delia |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Shooting Gallery Film Series |
Release date |
|
Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Drunks is a 1995 American drama film starring Richard Lewis and directed by Peter Cohn.
A group of alcoholics and addicts attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting held in a church basement in Times Square.[1] At the beginning of the meeting, Jim (Richard Lewis), reluctantly tells the story of his drug and alcohol abuse and subsequent sobriety, but gets upset and abruptly leaves the meeting.[2]
The movie proceeds to alternate between scenes of Jim's futile attempts to resist the temptation to drink that same night, intermixed with scenes of the remaining attendees of the meeting recounting their own struggles with addiction.[2] Some of the meeting's attendees include Becky (Faye Dunaway), a mother who worries about the effect of her drinking on her teenage son; Rachel (Dianne Wiest), a doctor who worries that she is replacing her alcohol and pill addiction with workaholism; Louis (Spalding Gray), a man who claims he came to the AA meeting in error, thinking it was choir practice; Shelly (Amanda Plummer), a neurotic woman dealing with a domineering mother; Debbie (Parker Posey), a party girl who idolizes Janis Joplin and has replaced her alcoholism with an addiction to football; Marty (George Martin), a clergyman and the meeting's chairperson; Joseph (Howard Rollins), a man who lost his marriage and nearly lost his son due to a drunk driving crash; Brenda (LisaGay Hamilton), an HIV-positive former heroin addict.[2][1][3]
Cast
- Richard Lewis as Jim
- Faye Dunaway as Becky
- Dianne Wiest as Rachel
- Spalding Gray as Louis
- Amanda Plummer as Shelly
- Parker Posey as Debbie
- George Martin as Marty
- Howard Rollins as Joseph
- Lisa Gay Hamilton as Brenda
- Christopher Lawford as Rich
- Sam Rockwell as Tony
- Calista Flockhart as Helen
- Anna Thomson as Tanya
- Liam Ahern as Billy
- Kevin Corrigan as Cam
- Julie Halston as Carol
- Oscar Koch as Dennis
- Zach Grenier as Al
- Margaret Devine as Terry
Production
The film marked Peter Cohn's directorial debut and Richard Lewis's first dramatic role as an actor.[4][1] Cohn is the son of the famed talent agent Sam Cohn of ICM, who helped his son in getting client Dianne Wiest to join the film's cast.[5]
The screenplay was written by Gary Lennon and was adapted from a play he wrote called Blackout.[2] In the original screenplay, Jim's character was of Irish descent, but his backstory was changed to make the character Jewish in order to better suit actor Richard Lewis, who is himself Jewish.[6] The film's budget was small, reportedly under $500,000, with the cast working for scale.[5] Many of the characters' monologues were improvised and filmed in one take.[7]
According to the Austin American-Statesman, Drunks was the last feature film to have been shot in Times Square prior to the intersection's redevelopment in the 1990s under the mayorship of Rudy Giuliani.[7]
