Love Liza (2002)
Written by Gordy Hoffman
Directed by Todd Louiso
Have a fancy for addiction genre movies? They are a fascinating genre that goes back to the very earliest movies. D W Griffith made an addiction movie, maybe more than one. Of course, A Star is Born (X4), Lost Weekend, classics. Or, Hatful of Rain, Days of Wine and Roses, Come Back Little Sheba, Panic in Needle Park. There are many more recent: Permanent Midnight, Rush, Requiem for Dream. Lots of meth movies.
There is an unlimited supply of them. Like the unlimited supply of easily available things to become addicted to. They are mostly relentless tragedies, or horror movies where the monsters are within the victims themselves. A sort of demonic possession in need of an exorcism by the church of AA.
The best ones are continual spirels downhill without the redemption that saves the day and holds the monster at bay, at least for now because we are told that the monster can never be killed. Do we ever really want the monster to be killed at the end and everyone living happily ever after? What fun is that? Once an addict, always one. The horror always looming creeping up on those not constantly vigilant or who think are in control of themselves and the monster within.
This one starring Philip Seymour Hoffman is certainly an interesting addition to the long list of addiction movies. It has the strangest of addictions, not the usual substances like alcohol or heroin, or meth. In that way it is unique and maybe even more disturbing than some of the others.
It all begins with a suicide. The wife of Wilson Joel (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has killed herself apparently right before we enter into the story.
Wilson is distraught and remains so though the entire movie. This is not a cheerful movie.
There is the implication that the addiction is a reaction to the grief. But this cannot be known. We don’t know why Liza has killed herself. She leaves Wison a letter in an envelope, but he carries it around not wanting to open it and read it
.
What was the quality and the nature of their relationship before her death? Had he been involved with addicting substance before her death? Was her role to hold him back from the brink, the long suffering wife keeping him together so he could keep his job and a life that appeared, on the surface, to be normal, middle class and functional. At the beginning he has a good job as a software or web developer, something with computers. He is good at it and respected by his coworkers.
We don’t know her reasons and how he factored into her ultimate decision. We only see his grief, his disconnection, his inability to reach out for whatever help there might have been in his affluent community. It seems that something was not quite right with Wilson to begin with. His substance of choice is obliterating and more self-destructive that others might have been. Since he is intelligent it seems as though he would know how bad it is.
He could have had a long history with this substance of choice and the absence of Liza was the excuse for the self destructive descent.
There is no questioning of it, or trying to stop and the movie just keeps on.
Kathy Bates plays Liza’s mom. She tries to help or at least is around going “WTF”. But somehow she seems a bit off herself even though she is grieving.
Wilson is a kind of one dimensional character. He is very low key and even lower when whacked out. In that way it is hard to really get to know him and hope that he pulls through. So we just look on at his messed up life, somewhat impassively.
The movie was written by Gordy Hoffman, the older brother of Philip Seymour Hoffman. The great star died 12 years after this movie was made. His biography material says that he was a heavy drug and alcohol user during his NYU years and went into rehab in 1989 saying sober for 23 years. In the end dying with a syringe in his arm and a number of drugs in his system.
He had his own addiction story going on, as many of us do and he only made it to 46 years old. One of the greatest stars of his generation.
His monster didn’t die, but stalked him even through fame and fortune, consuming him in the end.
