Showing posts with label neil burger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neil burger. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Winning?

Eddie is a schleppy, hipster writer who is unemployed (is there any other kind?) and an eternal under achiever. One day he bumps into his ex's brother who gives him a little pill that looks a lot like either A) piece of dried Super Glue (ooh, don't put that in your mouth!) or B) some suspicious new type of nicotine gum.

Ever the game idiot, Eddie takes the pill and slightly dizzying CGI kicks in while he fucks his landlord's girlfriend. She agrees to do him after he miraculously tells her how to write her law school term paper, or whatever. Later that evening Eddie cleans his apartment (nothing smoking pot can't induce!!!) for the first time ever and then sits down and cranks out his soon-to-be-best-selling novel in one fell swoop.



Eddie goes gambling and wins big and then goes to the creepiest casino on earth, the stock market, and starts winning even bigger. The New York Post interviews him. Um, I thought the goal of every New Yorker was to stay out of that rag? The only people that end up on the cover of it are celebrities that have fallen off the wagon and murder suspects.

Eddie goes on a tropical vacation, screws a lot of nameless, faceless women, drives a rented sports car real fast (terrifying and enraging the locals) and then jumps off a cliff into the ocean ... because he's now totally cool.

In the voice over, Eddie describes this wonder drug as having eliminated his awkwardness, his shyness and his ignorance -- essentially everything that makes him human. Apparently this pretend drug (NZT) is like cocaine with a crystal meth chaser and an extra dollop of arrogance.

Eventually Eddie goes where all the morally deficient "winners" go, to the stock market to make millions and get into some vague argument with Robert DeNiro's minor character about "not having paid his dues" (does this mean real stock brokers HAVE?). Eddie helps DeNiro's character broker some "deal of the century" and who gives a shit if thousands of employees get laid off or ass raped? 'Cos Eddie is WINNING!!!

Eddie is such a winner he may (or may not) have murdered a woman he picks up in a bar. But never mind that because then he has to win back the Perky Blonde who dumped him for previously being a slacker and then stop the Bad Guys from stealing his stash of NZT (Christ, the comparisons to cocaine just about hit you in the face).

At one point Perky Blonde Girlfriend sez something like "This drug is a lie" -- yet another cocaine reference -- but then the script and the plot dashes off for another dizzying round of tracking cam shots and punchy soundtrack.

Of course the muddled message is the same old trope: "winners" get lots of tail and lots of money and losers don't.

All this reminds me of something a high school teacher said to me eons ago: "The most interesting people are interested."

Who would wanna spend ten minutes in a room with a know-it-all like Eddie?