Opening with slices from four dead-ended lives and a series of stark white-on-black, screen-spanning plaints ("I don't love my wife," "I can't get hard," "I'm scared," etc.), I Melt With You screams downer from the get-go. Director Mark Pellington dreamed up this story with writer Glenn Porter, possibly under the delusion they were crafting something like a modern-day The Sun Also Rises—if Hemingway's novel about shattered hopes and beleaguered manhood had been penned by a brace of self-indulgent, self-pitying Peter Pans. Relocating his 21st-century Lost Generation from Spain to Big Sur, Pellington assembles four longtime college pals for an annual reunion-cum-bacchanal in a spacious rental overlooking the Pacific. Hellos and hugs have barely been exchanged before these sad sacks are laboring to get happy, via coke, joints, Scotch and a trove of pharmaceuticals.
Downer-screaming continues with Kat Murphy at http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-critic-reviews/i-melt-with-you/
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