Bright Lights, Big City

Directed by James Bridges, Bright Lights, Big City follows Michael J. Fox’s Jamie Conway as he attempts to balance his work and personal lives with a cocaine addiction that seems to be escalating significantly. Filmmaker Bridges, working from Jay McInerney, delivers an erratically-paced yet mostly compelling drama that benefits from the superb efforts of its performers, as Fox offers up an often impressively immersive turn that compensates for the narrative’s episodic, somewhat hit-and-miss bent and ensures that certain sequences are far more impactful than one might’ve anticipated – with this particularly true of a mid-movie episode in which Jamie rants and raves about his failed marriage while drinking a substantial amount of red wine. And although the picture does contain its fair share of less-than-convincing elements, including (and especially) a recurring emphasis on overly stylized instances of dialogue, Bright Lights, Big City, which also boasts Gordon Willis’ stirring visuals and several top-tier periphery performances, builds towards a satisfying final stretch that admittedly does pack a fairly pronounced emotional punch – with the end result an effective adaptation that paints a vivid portrait of New York City’s drug scene in the 1980s.

*** out of ****