Movies about alcoholism worth watching

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In any society there will always be people who are different from the crowd. Their life, as a rule, is an endless duel both with established rules and with themselves. In this battle, such a person will certainly win. But instead of laurels and calmness, the winner will get despair, loneliness and even greater self-destruction. He will fall into a vicious circle, like a snake biting its tail, from which you cannot get out alone. Drunkards never just happen…

Drunkenness in cinema

The topic of alcoholism is quite common both in domestic and foreign cinema. And if the Soviet and Russian cinema on this topic mainly has an episodic comedic orientation (suffice it to recall Shurik from the "Prisoner of the Caucasus"), then Western films are mainly focused on an in-depth study of this phenomenon from the personal side. Their alcoholics are most often creative and vulnerable people.

You can endlesslydiscuss drunkenness and its causes. But today our task is somewhat different - to remember those films about alcoholism that are worth watching in order to learn how to help a person who has fallen into the maelstrom of this harmful addiction. Even if that person is yourself…

For the convenience of tracking the change in the cinematic view of the issue, all tapes in this article will be presented in chronological order.

Friend

Our review opens with one of the most controversial and strange Soviet films, the main character of which, performed by the wonderful actor Sergei Shakurov, is a drunken intellectual. Even now, more than thirty years later, this Soviet film about alcoholism, released back in 1987, is still one of the few domestic films that represents precisely the dramatic side of drunkenness.

This kind and philosophical film tells the story of the relationship between the alcoholic Nikolai and a big black dog that can talk and responds to the name Friend. It is now unknown whether the analogy of the filmmakers with a black cat running across the road and being a bad omen was accidental. But as follows from the plot of this slightly sad picture, the black dog that crossed the hero's path eventually brought him faith in insight and hope for the best, showing Nikolai that life can be beautiful without alcohol…

Drunk

In the same 1987, in parallel with the Soviet "Friend", a drama was released in the USA"Drunk", one of the best films about alcoholism.

Finally drunk writer and poet Henry, brilliantly performed by the famous actor Mickey Rourke, who is at the very peak of his artistic career, literally does not get out of the bar. All his few joys left in life, entangled in the incessant drunken stupor, are listening to Mozart on the radio, writing scraps of stories and poems in illegible handwriting on crumpled pieces of paper, and fighting in the evenings in street rings.

One fine day, Rourke's drunk hero faces a choice - to stay with the same alcoholic Wanda and drunkard friends as he is, or to exchange them for an affair with a beautiful, rich and prosperous publisher Tully, unconsciously in love with him and his work.

However, both are an abyss for half-mad drunk Henry…

Grey Mouse

The next film about drunkenness and alcoholism was again a domestic film - the painting "Gray Mouse", released in 1988.

This dark and hopeless drama is dedicated to an ordinary day, one of many identical days lived by rural alcoholics. Before the eyes of the audience there is a picture of the real death of four already elderly people (the roles of which were played by actors Viktor Solovyov, Nikolai Gusarov, Valentin Golubenko and Vitaly Yakovlev), gathered together, as if in a kind of vicious circle, from which there is no way out toremove, as they say, stress. The protagonist of the film was once a successful director of the plant, but one day he crossed the path of higher bureaucrats, who eventually broke him and put the “Forbid” stamp on the career and the rest of the life of the former director.

After watching "The Gray Mouse", it becomes very cold in the soul from the feeling that the four heroes on the screen are constantly drinking vodka not to keep warm, but, on the contrary, to freeze to death …

When a man loves a woman

The topic of films about female alcoholism begins with the instructive melodrama of 1994 "When a man loves a woman", starring Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan.

The picture tells the story of Alice and Michael, whose family is almost destroyed by the woman's alcoholism. The reason for Alice's drinking is a secret that she cannot even share with her husband, taking out all her fatigue, depression and bitterness on him. However, Michael, in spite of everything, continues to support his wife in every possible way even when she starts drinking aspirin with vodka and ends up in a rehabilitation clinic.

This film turned out to be very sad, but kind. He evokes the deepest emotions and sensations in the audience, forcing him to answer the question to himself, could someone close to support them in such a situation …

Leaving Las Vegas

This undisputed leader among feature films about alcoholism was first presented to the audience in September 1995.

Pictureliterally saturated with an atmosphere of romance and hopelessness. The main character - screenwriter Ben, brilliantly performed by Nicolas Cage, enjoys such simple and understandable things for any alcoholic as the first glass in the morning. And although his weak and pathetic body is already shaking with a hangover, like jelly, he is still desperately cheerful and drunk.

What else can he do when his whole life has turned into a nightmare? When, as a result of constant binges, the whole career was finally destroyed and not a single close person remained nearby? Shouldn't you be drunk to death in beautiful and wicked Las Vegas?

In order to get used to the image of the main character as much as possible, Nicolas Cage had to become a real alcoholic for a while and even visit specialized clinics. His labors were not in vain - in 1996 the actor was awarded the Oscar for Best Actor.

Without restraint

In 2001, this film about teenage alcoholism won the Venice Film Festival, receiving a special jury award for Cinema of the Real, as well as an International Film Press Federation award.

The picture tells about one of the hot days of the fifteen-year-old David, whose role was played by an unknown young actor Pierre-Louis Bonnblanc, the day on which he first got drunk. Intoxicated with alcohol, he wandered the deserted outskirts of one of the farms, until, under the influence of the sun and a drunken change of mood, he fell into aggression,pushing him to a ridiculous and terrible act.

The film is a black-and-white pseudo-documentary, adding even more irrationality to the alcoholic visions of the protagonist shown to the audience, so desperately striving to grow up…

Bad Santa

The next in the list of outstanding films about alcoholism was the 2003 film "Bad Santa", which is a comedy with a happy ending. The film was produced by the famous Coen brothers, and the unfortunate and lonely drunken robber Willy was played by the famous actor Billy Bob Thornton, who showed all the alcoholic misadventures of his character so amazingly that he was even nominated for the Golden Globe Film Award for Best Male Comedy Role.

Gloomy, angry and unbearable drunk Willy worked in the supermarket as a good Santa Claus. Needless to say, Santa from Willy turned out so-so, until one fine day one unbearable boy interfered in his hopeless life …

Julia

Another memorable film about alcoholism among women, which cannot be ignored, was the dramatic thriller "Julia", released in 2008. The main role in it was played by the famous Tilda Swinton, who got an unexpected image of a far from young red-haired alcoholic who, despite her age, continued to wear ridiculously short skirts and defiantly make up.

Heroine Tilda Swinton soonturns fifty. She is a loser and all she has is debt and alcohol. Julia's life is somewhere between the incessant drunken parties and the beds of strangers. When the limit comes in her soul, she rashly agrees to a risky adventure that threatens to turn into a real disaster.

Despite the general hopeless atmosphere that remains a stain in the viewer's memory, the picture still has a life-affirming ending…

Crew

This 2012 tape occupies a special place among films about alcoholism. Its famous director Robert Zemeckis, who gave the world many masterpieces of cinema, among which his works such as "Forrest Gump", "Outcast", "Real Steel" and "Back to the Future" gained the greatest popularity and love of the audience, asked the world audience an absolutely unexpected question: what would happen if the hero was sober?

Indeed, what is happening on the screen can surprise anyone. The film's main character, pilot Wil, played by Denzel Washington, is an alcoholic. And so deep that he uses alcohol and cocaine even just before the ill-fated flight.

When an accident occurs during a flight, the pilot, who continues to be in a state of alcohol and drug intoxication, makes a decision that he could not even have come to mind if he was sober - turn the plane upside down and land it on water. And surprisingly, he succeeded. Wil rescued almost all the passengers andinstantly became a hero. But not for long, because immediately after the congratulations and thanks from the surviving passengers, an internal investigation began and the causes of the accident were clarified, which very soon grew into a real lawsuit…

The geographer drank his globe away

The final in the review of feature films about alcoholism was this Russian film of 2013, based on the novel of the same name by Alexei Ivanov. The scene of its action was the cold autumn Perm of the 90s, which is a symbolic image of a deaf and impoverished domestic province, in which nothing ever happens. The phrase "Happiness is not far off" laid out on the embankment in large letters looks rather mocking against the general freezing background.

The protagonist of the film, Victor, played by the wonderful actor Konstantin Khabensky, has entered a period of midlife crisis and drinks… His inner world is too large and multifaceted for the habitat in which he has to live.

By his age, he never achieved anything. He is constantly sawed by his wife, forcing him to eventually go to work as a geography teacher at the school. Victor continues to drink at school. Everyone drinks, even his students, with whom he goes camping. Everyone who is still trying to find some meaning in this life is drinking.

But alcohol turns out to be just a background to the main idea of the picture, which is nothing but love…

Instead of afterword

By and large, the films discussed in this article arealbeit very reliable, but still fiction. And our review would not be complete without the final point - the old Soviet documentary film about women's alcoholism "Over the Threshold", filmed by Sverdlovsk television back in 1978.

Despite the fact that more than forty years have passed since the date of its creation, this film can only be viewed on the Internet. "Beyond the threshold" is the other side of our life. Real and scary. Exactly the way the filmmakers saw her during the filming of women in the sobering-up stations of the city of Sverdlovsk …