Themes: Faltering Friendships, Love Triangles, Drug Addiction
Main Cast: Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright Penn, Chazz Palminteri, Garry Shandling
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 150 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
David Rabe's popular play of Hollywood immorality and decadence is brought to the big screen by director Anthony Drazan and an all-star cast that includes Sean Penn, Robin Wright-Penn, Kevin Spacey, Meg Ryan, Chazz Palminteri, Garry Shandling, and Anna Paquin. The film is set in the Hollywood Hills and tells the story of Eddie (Penn) a drinking-smoking-snorting-womanizing casting director and his philandering partner-roommate Mickey (Spacey). Along with their buddies Artie and Phil, they sit around and pontificate about the meaning of life -- that is, the meaning of their lives, of which there is very little. Eddie is in love with Darlene (real-life wife Wright Penn), but she is also seeing the married Mickey. When Artie brings Eddie and Mickey a "care package" in the shape of a pretty, disillusioned hitchhiker named Donna (Paquin), they take turns throwing her around until, yet again, their own empty pathetic lives preoccupy their paranoid minds. As people and relationships deteriorate everywhere, the guys try to pick Phil by giving him the gift of a washed-up exotic dancer, Bonnie (Ryan). Of course she ends up just more abused than ever as she and the rest of the gang hit rock bottom. ~ Arthur Borman, All Movie Guide
Derek R. Hill - Art Director, David Rubin - Casting, Mary Claire Hannan - Costume Designer, David Wechsler - First Assistant Director, Anthony Drazan - Director, Dylan Tichenor - Editor, Frederick Zollo - Executive Producer, Carl-Jan Colpaert - Executive Producer, Nicholas Paleologos - Executive Producer, H. Michael Heuser - Executive Producer, Steve Lindsey - Composer (Music Score), David Baerwald - Composer (Music Score), Michael Haller - Production Designer, Gu Changwei - Cinematographer, Anthony Drazan - Producer, Richard N. Gladstein - Producer, David Shamroy Hamburger - Producer, Jeff Wexler - Sound/Sound Designer, David Rabe - Screenwriter, David Rabe - Play Author
Hurlyburly is an adaptation of David Rabe's play about the intersecting lives of several Hollywood players and wannabes, whose dysfunctional personal lives are more interesting than anything they're peddling to the studios.
Opening in 16 theaters, the film grossed $164,826 in its opening weekend; the widest release the film ever got was in 84 theaters. As of now, the film has grossed a total of $1,798,862. The film has a 61 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[1]
