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BY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
One of the better films bouncing around the festival circuit, Tao Ruspoli's vivid "Fix," is finally finding its way into a very limited theatrical release in a season of broader national reconsideration of its subject matter, drugs.
Shot in 2007, "Fix" takes viewers through a hectic, hilarious and heart-rending day from the filmmaker's own life. The task? Dash around greater Los Angeles to get his heroin addict brother into rehab to avoid prison.
The film's selling points are Ruspoli's fizzy visuals, knockout performances from Shawn Andrews as the flashy lead and a supporting cast at the top of their games, and an affecting personal journey.
"This is based on a true story, unfortunately," said Ruspoli, previously known as a documentarian. "My brother has been battling heroin addiction for about 12 years."
Ruspoli's promotional efforts have included an illuminating dialogue at the Village East Cinemas in Manhattan with author Daniel Pinchbeck of realitysandwich.com, an advocate of the psychological and spiritual benefits of psychedelic substances.Pinchbeck infiltrated mainstream consciousness through his 2006 book, "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl." He sees the Mayan prophecy less as a signpost to cinematic apocalypse than as decision point for choosing a future.
"It's hard to make a cultural translation ... because we don't have a way in our culture to explore altered states productively," Pinchbeck said.
In the United States over the past century, substances that were legal, and even used sacramentally in older cultures, have been criminalized. In Pinchbeck's view, that has lead some people who might have safely used psychedelics into danger with more readily available, because more profitable, hard drugs.
"In a more mature society, some people who become addicts here may have been shamans." he said.
That's a tough sell to many past and present addicts, not to mention people dealing with family members who are addicts. Pinchbeck said he is not equating addiction with shamanism, simply pointing out the legal obstacles to traditional ways.
Now, the "medical marijuana" movement reflects the growing acceptance, and at times legal availability, of softer drugs. Even as they were banning gay marriage, Maine voters earlier this month expanded its existing marijuana statute, becoming the fifth state to allow retail dispensaries.
The America Medical Association changed its long-standing policy and asked the federal government to stop classifying pot with heroin. In October, the Obama Administration told federal law enforcement not to stop raiding state authorized outlets. At the same time, a Gallup poll found 44 percent of Americans favor outright legalization.
Still, there are reasons for caution with some substances. When we last saw psychedelic drugs as an instrument of public policy in New York City, it was U.S. Army researcher Frank Olson plunging to his death from the tenth floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania, where a CIA doctor was "monitoring" him. But the hazard may not have been the drugs themselves.
Olson had participated in the spy agency's MK-ULTRA program to explore the affects of LSD and other drugs on individuals and in population centers. In the agency's version of events, he suffered a meltdown after being given the psychedelic MDA and killed himself. Decades later, the agency publicly apologized and Congress paid Olson's family $750,000.
Not everyone bought the story, because Olson apparently had doubts about the program. After his body was exhumed in 1994, Olson was found to have suffered a blow to the head sufficient to render him unconscious – before jumping out the window.
MK-ULTRA experiments may have had other side effects. Ken Kesey participated while at Stanford, and became a best-selling author and drug advocate. Theodore Kaczynski participated while at Harvard, and became the Unabomber. Perhaps there's no connection.
As the observer in a family of addictive personalities, Ruspoli believes "you have to make a clear distinction between drugs that are physically addicting, that do actual physical damage, and those that may let you explore other forms of consciousness."
His father, the Italian prince, poet and bon vivant Dado Ruspoli, became a junkie as a young man, but was dissuaded by Jean Cocteau, who introduced him to opium as a way to wean him from smack. Queen Victoria, whose military forced opium into China on behalf of Western merchants, would have been proud.
"My father would smoke a bowl of opium a day, and he went on to live until he was 80 and have a happy, productive life," Ruspoli said.
In contrast, his brother Bartolomeo, the movie's "creative consultant" remains a worry.
"The saddest thing about addiction to me is ... most of the time it's him disappearing," Ruspoli said. "He's on methadone now, which is even worse than heroin but allows people to be more functional."
Bartolomeo does make a brief on-screen appearance, popping a wheelie as a biker friend of the movie's addict, Leo. It's the kind of flamboyant gesture his brother displays off-screen, Ruspoli said.
"He's even more charismatic and charming than Shawn plays him in the film," Ruspoli said.
Which is pretty damned charismatic. Andrews is still remembered for his 1993 performance in the stoner epic "Dazed and Confused." That should have been a star-making turn, but he virtually disappeared from view.
Now he has returned, boyish good looks intact, with a performance that catches the essence of a dashing, charming, generous, wheedling, conniving, thieving, totally untrustworthy junkie. Despite first impressions, that's acting.
"Shawn has never used drugs at all, believe it or not," Ruspoli said. "He's a really, healthy and clean-cut guy."
As Leo, Andrews leads an exasperated couple on a tour of greater Los Angeles, from Calabasas to Monterey Park to Watts to Palos Verdes to Anaheim, trying to raise the $5,000 needed to enter rehab by an 8 p.m. deadline.
The couple also lived this in real life. Ruspoli plays a self-effacing cameraman, largely offscreen, while the filmmaker is his wife, the ridiculously beautiful Olivia Wilde. Easily moving beyond her role as a pretend doctor in an imaginary New Jersey on the medical black comedy "House," Wilde's skeptical Bella provides a counter-weight to the free-wheeling Leo.
Unlike most Angelenos, Leo moves across racial and class lines, from crippled veterans to executives' wives to drug purveyors of various ethnicities and consumers of various classes. Even without 3-D, the supporting cast jumps off the screen.
To mention just two, as one of Leo's girlfriends sexy Megalyn Echikunwoke of "CSI: Miami" gives a performance that demands leading roles. Mixing what seem to be Valley, Mittel European and Jamaican dialects, Jakob Von Eichel is hilarious as a wealthy full-time wannabe.
For all its entertainment value, "Fix" is a serious film on a serious subject. Ruspoli seemed stricken when asked if he is exploiting his brother.
"Maybe, I hope not, that wasn't the intention," he said. "I see filmmaking as way of working through this ... the film was made as an act of love."
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