Bright Lights, Big City (1988)
Storyline
A young kid from Kansas moves to New York to work on a magazine. He gets caught up in the world of drink and drugs, and starts a steady decline. The only hope is the cousin of one of his drinking partners, can she pull him through it ?
Directors
Writers
Cast
Kelly Lynch, Sam Robards, Alec Mapa, Frances Sternhagen, Kiefer Sutherland, John Houseman, Swoosie Kurtz, Dianne Wiest, William Hickey, Maria Pitillo, David Hyde Pierce, Annabelle Gurwitch, Susan Traylor, Michael J. Fox, Jason Robards, Phoebe Cates, Jessica Lundy, Peter Boyden, Tracy Pollan, David Warrilow, Gina Belafonte, Bernard Zette, Marika Blossfeldt, Russell Horton
Trailer
Reviews
88
Fox is very good in the central role (he has a long drunken monologue that is the best thing he has ever done in a movie). To his credit, he never seems to be having fun as he journeys through club land. Few do, for long. If you know someone like Jamie, take him to this movie, and don't let him go to the john.
70
It may not capture Mr. McInerney's novel completely or even succeed in standing on its own, but it does go a long way toward bringing the book to life. If Mr. McInerney's readers think it incomplete, they should also find it enjoyably familiar.
60
Empire
An insipid '80s nostalgia piece really, held together by Fox's performance and several neat turns from his support.
60
A hollow view of hollowness with a very polished surface.
58
Too bad he's caught in a movie that all too accurately captures the tenor of its time with its slick, superficial, coked-up, money-drunk emptiness.
