🔴 Condition - Very Good 🔴

Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch play husband and wife drug addicts living in the northwestern reaches of the United States circa 1971, whose lives, and those of their devoted friends (Heather Graham and James Le Gros) revolve entirely around the pills and paraphernalia they are able to relieve local pharmacies of. Unlike later films about drugs, however (Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream and the latter stages of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic spring to mind), the audience isn't dragged into complete despair nor made too aware of the moral issues involved. Van Sant likes his characters and spends time with them, allowing us to see them as flawed but honest, never preaching to us nor manipulating our emotional responses to their behaviour. The film and its characters have a 'take it or leave it' mentality that is low key and unobtrusive. After their criminal activity places a little too much heat on the group they hit the road and the film follows their journey through a free-spirited USA, trailed by a dedicated copper intent on breaking their little racket. Life choices present themselves as the story builds to its end, and thankfully, the resolution is free of preaching or cheap emotional payoffs.