Another Day in Paradise
Director: Larry Clark
Writer: Christopher B. Landon, Stephen Chin
Based on: Eddie Little‘s book
Cast: James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, Natasha Gregson Wagner, James Otis, Peter Sarsgaard
Part of: Road Movie Special at the Filmmuseum

Plot:
Bobbie (Vincent Kartheiser) and Rosie (Natasha Gregson Wagner) are young, in love, drug addicts and criminals. After a break-in that goes pretty badly for Bobbie, they meet Mel (James Woods) and his girlfriend Sid (Melanie Griffith). Mel sees potential in Bobbie and kind of adopts him – to use him for robberies and drug deals, introducing him into the “big league”. What at first seems to be a functioning, if morally dubious ersatz family soon gets out of control when they encounter problems with the drug deals.

Another Day in Paradise is a tight film with an excellent cast. It’s not perfect but it tells its story very well.

I’m not the world’s biggest Melanie Griffith fan, but in this movie she steals every single scene she’s in. And that even though the rest of the cast is really good as well. I was suprised by Vincent Kartheiser who I  basically just remember as the worst thing about Angel (though admittedly that is more Connor’s fault than his) – he is really good. [Peter Sarsgaard shows up for about 2 minutes and those are awesome minutes.]

The writing was really good – the characters felt very real and you’re so caught up with their story that you don’t really notice how fucked up the whole situation is while you’re watching. The slow progression of the situation into deep shit was very well done. It kept the tension nicely for the most time.

Towards the end it did get a little long though. A bit of shortening wouldn’t have been bad. That and the cinematography (which was a bit too nervous and had too much shaky cam – bane of my existence – to not be annoying) are the only two reasons the film doesn’t get full marks in my book.

Summarising: Fantastic, but depressing film.