DVD Review: Shrink (2009)

Released February 18, 2010

Kevin Spacey asleep on the job in Shrink

Shrink is a distinctly indie feature with aspirations of being a scathing Hollywood satire. In truth, its jabs at the industry that gave it life are less scathing than familiar and trite – we’ve seen all this before, wittier and more assured, in Robert Altman’s The Player.

From the opening montage set to an ethereal Coldplay clone it’s clear Shrink really wants to be about something, and wants us to know about it.

Henry Carter is the titular psychiatrist, played by Kevin Spacey with his usual magneticisim. When recording his new audio book “Happiness Now!” he says “Happiness is a word for a feeling. Feelings are rarely understood in the moment, they are quickly forgotten and almost always misremembered. And besides, feelings are totally full of shit...”

His misery stems from the recent death of his wife, who committed suicide, and of the frustrating self-obsessive problems of many of his patients. These include an obnoxious movie producer (Dallas Roberts), a sex and alcohol addicted celebrity (an uncredited Robin Williams) and an actress (Saffron Burrows), the most sensible of the three, but who is still struggling with her career and destructive husband.

Carter is awoken from his self-indulgent, pot-smoking slumber by the arrival of Jemma (Keke Palmer), a troubled school student with filmmaker aspirations. Will this be the trigger to make him finally stick his neck out for somebody? In a less conventional film, maybe this wouldn't happen. This is not that film.

The screenplay suffers from its parallel structure – a difficult thing to pull off – which valiantly ties its threads into a big happy knot, but the narrative lacks dramatic drive. A few of the punchlines about Hollywood’s current obsession with vampires ring true, but is it really wise to have not one or two, but three obvious references to The Graduate? (literally, as Jemma observes a revival screening) All it does it remind you of a better movie you could be watching.

Shrink did not garner a theatrical release in Australia, but is now available on DVD. It’s only notable feature is a 22 min interview with Director Jonas Pate and Producer Braxton Pope, who discuss the birth and evolution of the project. Like the film, the video quality of these special features is poor, with aliasing and artefacts in almost every scene.

Diluted by absent direction and a script that resolves everything and nothing, Shrink is occasionally funny but ultimately vapid. By trying too hard to be sincere, you sometimes end up achieving the opposite.