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God's lonely man

Threat advisory: Severe - Severe risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

The whole conviction of my life now is that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon... is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. - Thomas Wolfe

Ernest (Michael Wyle) is a consummate loner whose dark eyes hide excruciating pain caused by a lifetime of inner frustration, fear and loneliness. He carries around with him a sense of something unavoidable. What is unavoidable he doesn't know, but whatever it is, it's omnipresent.

One day he encounters 15-year-old Christiane (Heather McComb) who is coming out of an alcoholics anonymous meeting. They start spending time together, and when he learns of her painful situation he sets out to bring a little justice to the world.

In competition at Sundance.

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Wow.

If you thought that Quentin Tarantino was doing ok with Pulp fiction, then you'd better see the real thing with God's lonely man.

Dark? It makes Darth Vader look like Mister Bubbles. Ooops, that was a bit tacky, wasn't it?

Take a double dose of Prozac or morphine or whatever your poison is before you see the film because it's incredibly painful to watch someone's life scraping along at the bottom of a deep, dark hole in the ground. It's no wonder that Ernest is suicidal.

Michael is scary and brilliant; Heather is ditzy and teenagerish. They live the roles seamlessly: it's like watching a documentary more than anything else (the screenplay was inspired by auteur Francis von Zerneck's own life as an addict/depressive). The film has an intensity that only gets more and more intense as the film progresses. Tt delves shamelessly into the lives of those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, turning stones which others would leave unturned. Gritty realism on a stick.

However, I didn't like the ending as it doesn't match the rest of the film. It has a distinct purpose (not a Hollywood happy ending), but it still doesn't work for me. Make your own mind up about that one.

Watch out for Justine Bateman as the daughter of a porn shop owner, and Jamie Walters as a hustler.

Security censorship classification

R 18+ (Medium level violence, adult themes, drug use)

Surveillance time

101 minutes (1:41 hours)

Not for public release in Australia before date

Film: 5 June 1997