In this film, Christina Ricci continued her transition into adult films at 19 with this memoir adaptation by Elizabeth Wurtzul by the same name, chronicling her entry into Harvard, the early beginnings of her writing career and her almost immediate descent into depression and her complicated mental illness after taking drugs at a party.
Both Ricci and her Jessica Lange, who plays her overbearing mother, are excellent in this film. The film, however, doesn't go as deep as it should have done when discussing these complicated and important issues. Although many kids who's parents get divorced go on to have OK lives, many others are unable to process it, and can have devastating effects later in life. Which is what happens here with Lizzie.
I absolutely thought Ricci's nude scene was gratuitous and unnecessary. It served no purpose other than to create hype for the teen star's first time being naked on screen.
I guess for the time that it was made, extensively depicting themes like depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal tendencies was a relatively new thing in Hollywood, and it continued on from there with movies like Thirteen and, on the smaller screen, The Sopranos.
Both Ricci and her Jessica Lange, who plays her overbearing mother, are excellent in this film. The film, however, doesn't go as deep as it should have done when discussing these complicated and important issues. Although many kids who's parents get divorced go on to have OK lives, many others are unable to process it, and can have devastating effects later in life. Which is what happens here with Lizzie.
I absolutely thought Ricci's nude scene was gratuitous and unnecessary. It served no purpose other than to create hype for the teen star's first time being naked on screen.
I guess for the time that it was made, extensively depicting themes like depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal tendencies was a relatively new thing in Hollywood, and it continued on from there with movies like Thirteen and, on the smaller screen, The Sopranos.