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Wonderland
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Drugs, porn and crime – plus many gaudy clothes and kitschy songs from the 1970s and '80s. This is the grunge formula in popular cinema created largely by the success of Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997). The reckless hedonism of an underworld lifestyle, breathlessly recreated, is balanced by a sense of impending doom and breakdown. This anti-heroic trend can be traced back to two landmark movies in which lifestyle excesses figured as the heady climax to a long and elaborate social ascension: Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983) and Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990). But more recent movies in the grunge mode, including Requiem for a Dream (2000), Blow (2001) and Auto Focus (2002), tend to erase the complex social panoramas traced by De Palma and Scorsese. They aim more for a cinema of sensation typified by Trainspotting (1996), inviting us right inside the fractured mindset of an out-of-control central character – the American Psycho syndrome. It sometimes happens that a film digs so deeply into this Gothic space of an individual's drug-enhanced perceptions that it achieves a true insight, as in Abel Ferrara's remarkable The Blackout (1997). But Wonderland represents the nadir of the entire low-life genre. The novelty of this project lies in its choice of real-life protagonist: this is the sordid story of porn star John Holmes (Val Kilmer) in his has-been days, reduced to pathetic scamming and theft. Indeed, Holmes' glorious past in the screen sex trade now only serves him as a distant reference. It gives him a certain tawdry allure, but can also be used to humiliate him, court-jester style – as an intriguing early scene with crime boss Nash (Eric Bogosian) shows. The life of Holmes – a man who inspired extremes of love and hate – is rich material, as the documentary Wadd (1998) revealed. But by focussing on a single, key episode in the period of Holmes' unlovely downfall – the 'Wonderland murders' of 1981 – writer-director James Cox blows the opportunity to create any larger perspective than the usual you-are-there thrills common to contemporary grunge movies. Ultimately, as it plays out, there is no compelling reason why this should be a story about Holmes, as distinct from any other gutter-crawling scumbag. Perhaps sensing this, Wonderland casts around for another centre of interest. The first option is to make this the survival tale of a grunge wife. It is partly through the youthful, naïve eyes of Dawn (Kate Bosworth) that we are navigated through this dark, treacherous world. But Dawn's particular journey from amoral enjoyment through growing doubt and finally to righteousness never registers very solidly or convincingly. Holmes' former partner, long-suffering Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), makes a more indelible impression in less screen time. Wonderland's other ambit claim for our attention is in the prismatic way it organises the narrative. The trick is old: the same central scene retold – in this case, laboriously – from the successive viewpoints of those involved. Each time, a different story – with a different pattern of hunches, mistakes, betrayals and foolish impulses – emerges. And each time we care a little less about what might really have happened. Many grunge films founder on this question: what is the point of recounting the life of some hopeless burn-out? Filmmakers including De Palma, Scorsese and Larry Clark use such stories as a springboard into a wider investigation. But Wonderland hardly gets out of the starting gate. © Adrian Martin January 2004 |
