Kevin Spacey is indisputably an actor’s actor, so it comes as no surprise he’s willing to let himself look thoroughly awful in “Shrink,” a new indie that examines self-destructive Hollywood types.
He doesn’t just look like 40 miles of bad road; he looks like 40 miles of bad road after an asteroid strike. This is a compliment: Spacey gives a typically smart performance that owes little to vanity — even if there’s something vain about letting yourself look this bad.
He plays Henry Carter, shrink to the stars. Carter’s psychiatry practice has made him something of a TV celebrity, with a couple of self-help books to his credit.
The movie delves into the lives of various patients of his. One high-powered agent (Dallas Roberts) is trying to coax an addictive client (Jack Huston) into sanity, or at least momentary clarity.
Another patient is a well-known movie star (Robin Williams, doing an unbilled number) who’d like to go back to his womanizing ways, even if he is married. And Carter has also taken on a pro bono case involving a high-school kid (Keke Palmer) whose grief has led her to skip school whenever she wants.
There are more characters bustling around Thomas Moffet’s screenplay, including a frustrated young screenwriter (Mark Webber) and a slightly fading actress (Saffron Burrows). Also playing a central role is Dr. Carter’s drug dealer, a chipper young chap who rolls out his briefcase of whimsically named weed varieties for the doctor’s increasingly enthusiastic perusal.
In short, Carter’s going to need to heal himself before he can get much done with his patients. But we know this from the opening shots of the picture, as he smokes his way through morning shower and shave (being high while shaving could explain his monumental stubble).
These varied strands come together in an all-too-neat way in “Shrink,” which gets the L.A. milieu (and some nifty industry-speak) right, but which can’t quite generate momentum for its collection of crisscrossing story lines.
What remains is an actors’ showcase, and there are a couple of standouts beyond Spacey’s dissolute turn. Dallas Roberts has been threatening to break out through a series of supporting parts in unusual things like “3:10 to Yuma” and “Joshua,” and he gets to let fly here in an obnoxious, aggressive role.
Meanwhile, English actor Jack Huston adds an intriguing new piece to a family legacy that includes his aunt Anjelica, grandfather John and great-grandfather Walter. It’s early yet, but he looks as though he might be worthy of the name — and if he took any lessons from Kevin Spacey, so much the better.
Shrink
Kevin Spacey lets himself look perfectly awful to play a self-destructive Hollywood psychiatrist, whose equally troubled patients lead us into a crisscrossing study of different L.A. lives. The movie doesn’t get up much momentum, but some of the actors are fun to watch, notably Dallas Roberts and Jack Huston.
Rated: R for language, nudity, subject matter
Showing: Guild 45th
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