In 1995, the late director Scott Calvert shot an indie drug film in a tough, shocking way. The painting “Basketball Player's Diary” is based on Jim Carroll’s autobiographical novel. Although the film adaptation took place in the 90s, the plot takes the viewer to the beginning of the 60s - at a time when the youth subculture was born and immediately became peddling. In this regard, filmmakers note the similarity of the drama with the "Beautiful Boy" by Felix van Grutingen.
Criticism
Jim Dennis Carroll is deservedly considered a cult writer in New York. His autobiographical novel, written in 1978, many wanted to film. But such an honor fell practically to the debutant Scott Calvert, who had previously shot video clips.
Immediately after the premiere of "Diary of a Basketball Player," the reviews received conflicting opinions. Some reviewers called the plot of the film - "liquid tea." At the same time, the tape, modest in terms of the production budget ($ 2,381,087), went pretty well at the box office. Also, “The Diary of a Basketball Player” in critics' reviews was compared with such cult tapes as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Requiem for a Dream,” and “On the Needle.” At the same time, cinema experts focus on the fact that Calvert’s work at times more realistic demonstrates the consequences of destructive attachment.
Assessment of professionals
On the aggregators of professional reviews Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the approval rating reached 46%, according to IMDb it was 7.30. Most contributing authors emphasized that the picture is convincing, sometimes ruthless, but it does not cause a feeling of physical disgust, unlike other films about heroic drug addicts. But the main thing is that this film emotionally and excitingly tells the story of a teenager from St. Vitus Catholic College.
Plot
The reviews on Basketball Diary underline the successful storytelling structure, which is conducted on behalf of the central character, Jim, a 16-year-old teenager who is fond of basketball and writing poetry. The young man keeps an open diary in which he fixes his fascination with narcotic drugs and the consequences of this act.
He and his friends become real drug addicts, ready for a crime for the sake of getting the next dose. Gradually degrading, the boy goes to jail, but he manages to break free from the chains of terrible dependence, and his friends remain to die on the street.
It is not surprising that viewers in their reviews of the film “The Diary of a Basketball Player” (1995) were more supportive of the work of Scott Calvert. After all, the tape without excessive empathy demonstrates what fate awaits drug addicts.
Addictive antihero
Drugs are gradually destroying everything good and bright in the life of a key character: passion for sports, love, literary experiments, lessons and walks in Central Park. Remaining unhealed ulcers and vagrancy through gloomy slums. According to reviews of The Basketball Player’s Diary (1995), one of the strongest scenes of the drama is the episode in which DiCaprio - Carroll cannot hold back tears at his mother’s door, which rejected him, and is left alone in the dark.
The acting talent of Leonardo DiCaprio and Lorraine Bracco makes the viewer believe in the sincerity of everything that happens on the screen. A heavy, terrible sight that Kevin Smith called one of the best films of the mid-90s. The story is undoubtedly moralizing with all accents revealing vices, but in it you still feel the attractive force of youth rushing along the slope without brakes.
However, reviewers in reviews of the “Basketball Player's Diary” argue that, in much the same way, ambiguously, other adaptations of works about drug addicts are perceived, up to the legendary “Requiem for a Dream”. Perhaps, for this reason, the picture is prohibited for distribution in some states, in Belarus, for example.
Lead actor
The image of the protagonist, an athlete, a budding poet, a pure New York youth who later became addicted to heroin, was originally supposed to be embodied on the screen by the River Phoenix (“Wacky Bet”, “Idling”, “Stay with Me”). But the actor in reality was obsessed with the heroin demon and died of an overdose before the start of the filming process.
Almost all reviews of the film "Basketball Player's Diary" exaggerate this fact. Then the role was offered to the young DiCaprio, who had already played the accursed poet Rimbaud and received an Oscar nomination in 1994 for his participation in the creation of the film “What Gilbert Grape Eats?” It’s hard to come up with a better candidate. Leonardo DiCaprio is indicatively organic in the image of Jim Carroll.
Even now in a media interview, he states that every time he is offered a new role, the actor recalls Rivera Phoenix, who died at the age of 23 from a drug overdose. At the same time, the position of the contractor in relation to the addiction is extraordinary. DiCaprio claims that he would never discourage anyone from using drugs. He is convinced that if you say “no” to a person many times, this will only push him closer.
Acting Ensemble
All the performers involved in the production of the film made up a stunning acting ensemble, demonstrating true professionalism. In the reviews to the "Diary of a Basketball Player" praise was awarded to almost every actor. Lorraine Bracco (“Substitution”, “Glorious Guys”) was an excellent success in the image of the unhappy, suffering mother.
A friend of the main character Mickey, who is degrading along with Jim, is played at that time by the rising, and now full-fledged Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg (“Shooter”, “The Departed”). Juliette Lewis (Cape of Fear, From Dusk Till Dawn) before Scott Calvert’s project did not play vicious and repulsive heroines, but was convincing in the image of a Brooklyn drug addict.
By the way, subsequently, Michael Imperioli, who embodied on the screen a second friend of Jim named Bobby, Lorraine Bracco and Vincent Pastore met on the set of the cult serial of the present - “The Soprano Clan”. And the author of the novel, Jim Carroll, appeared in the episodic role of drug addict Frankie Pinewater, who shows teenagers a ritual of heroin use.