The imaginary pitch: Cross Say Anything
with The Days of Wine and Roses
with The Days of Wine and Roses
Miller Teller as Sutter Keely, the Functioning Alcoholic |
I’ve known that had a hip flask was a functioning alcoholic. I knew the movie was going to be about a teenager who drank, but I didn’t know it was going to be about a teenager who is a functioning alcoholic. Unlike a sloppy alcoholic, the functioning alcoholic is generally intelligent or charming and can reel in a social drinker or non-imbiber before he or she knows the full extent of the problem. Sometimes, as Sutter admits late in the movie, they can honestly assess themselves, but it doesn’t mean they’ll do anything about it.
The Spectacular Now shows just where Sutter might end up at forty, namely on a bar stool spinning a bunch of silly tales for other alcoholics, functioning or sloppy. They love this ‘camaraderie’ that can turn vicious or violent and yes I know whereof I speak. To the non-drinker or social drinker, this milieu seems stupid or dangerous. When he gives the girl he likes, though he isn’t sure whether it’s a rebound or a potential real romance, a hip flask as a gift, I wanted to pull her away from that car and drag her home. Since that girl, Aimee Finecky, has self esteem issues that she’s hidden by working hard, studying hard, and keeping out of the limelight, she brightens because one of the popular kids takes an interest in her. And Sutter talks a good game that’s bright and peppy and entices the listener to feel wonderful in his presence. It’s the secret to great salesmanship and functioning alcoholics practice it like a pianist’s scales. However, the scholar-athlete-philanthropist says after one of Sutter’s one-on-one talks, “You’re not the joke some people say you are.”
Teller and Woodley as Convincing Teenage Lovers |
Pure Teenage Skin |
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