The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray Movie Review

This is your diary on drugs.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 7, 2016

The Adderall Diaries may ultimately be a pretty muddled mess, but it can at least serve as a benchmark for those who feel they come from the most dysfunctional family ever. Chances are after they sit through this film (if they’re able to sit through it, that is), they’ll realize their childhoods were glistening wonderlands of unity and affection, at least relatively speaking. Ostensibly based on Stephen Elliott’s best selling quasi-memoir, The Adderall Diaries’ film adaptation was so problematic that evidently Elliott wasn’t pleased that his name was ported over to be used as that of the character played by James Franco. This particular Stephen Elliott is, like his namesake, an up and coming author with what looks like a fantastic career ahead of him, one being shepherded by his smart and no nonsense agent Jen (Cynthia Nixon). Stephen’s early writing success has come courtesy of the author being willing to mine his apparently extremely troubled childhood, one that was traumatized by the abusive behavior of Stephen’s father Neil (Ed Harris), a guy Stephen insists is thankfully deceased (spoiler alert: he isn't). In a none too surprising plot development, Neil shows up after years of estrangement, casting doubt on Stephen’s account of what went down in prior years, but making it clear that Stephen’s account probably had at least some basis in truth, at least as evidenced by Neil’s contemporary behavior. In the meantime (and there’s a lot of “meantime” in The Adderall Diaries’ overstuffed plot mechanics), Stephen, suffering from a depressive bout of writer's block, has begun looking into a high profile murder case that he hopes will provide source material for an upcoming tome. He’s also become fascinated by a young woman named Lana (Amber Heard) who is also covering the case of a guy named Hans Reiser (Christian Slater) who’s been accused of murder in a highly publicized trial. There’s at least the semblance of a riveting drama (maybe more than one, in fact) at the center of The Adderall Diaries, one that plays with memory and “reality” in a kind of quasi- Rashômon manner, but writer-director Pamela Romanowsky doesn’t seem to know how to shape her material, bifurcating her approach in the same way that the titular drug can oddly be used to treat either ADHD or narcolepsy.

The Adderall Diaries wants to exploit the by now fairly tired conceit of an unreliable narrator as it doles out information about Stephen’s past, with home movies that seem to detail a happily frolicking father and son, scenes that are denied by Elliott’s best selling “warts and all” memoir of his troubled childhood. Except—was it really troubled? That’s one of the enigmas providing subtext in The Adderall Diaries, though it’s notable that with so many different subplots competing for attention and Romanowsky’s predilection for stylized directorial flourishes, it often seems like a tangent rather than a central piece of the puzzle.

Part of what ails The Adderall Diaries is a performance style that, in some cases at least, tends to work directly against what would seem to be fairly florid material. Franco is already a known quantity in the kind of interior, “mumble core” approach toward wounded characters, but it’s kind of odd to see the often histrionic Slater reduced to spouting platitudes in a monotone, especially when his character would seem to be a duplicitous schemer. Amber Heard’s supposed journalist covering the story at least has a kinky sexual side that injects a few titillating moments into an otherwise fairly turgid enterprise.

Largely escaping the morass that Romanowsky has assembled is Ed Harris, who infuses the film with some much needed energy. That may not be an entirely good thing for the overall shape (or lack thereof) of the film, for the ambiguity about what really happened between Neil and Stephen is supposedly the lynch pin upon which much of the roiling emotional content of the film hinges. Harris has a mesmerizing presence in the film, but one which perhaps works against that hoped for ambiguity simply because it’s so precise and focused.

The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Adderall Diaries is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists The Adderall Diaries as having been digitally captured with the Red Epic Mysterium X, which I must say is my new favorite camera name. While the source imagery is often commendably clear and well detailed, at least in more brightly lit moments, director Pamela Romanowsky and DP Bruce Thierry Chung have tweaked the look of the film rather aggressively in post, offering all sorts of "bells and whistles" that some may find distracting at best and not especially helpful to the visual presentation at worst. A lot of the film has been skewed toward purple, something that tends to make flesh tones look almost demonic at times, and which tends to tamp down fine detail, especially in the many dimly lit or outright nighttime scenes. Other moments have been more "traditionally" graded toward yellow, though a number of these sequences have at least a dusting of noise at times, an anomaly which also afflicts some of the purple sequences although perhaps not quite as noticeably. When the palette isn't being played with, detail levels are excellent and sharpness and clarity are also pleasing. The literal darkness of so much of the film tends to really keep it from "popping" in a typical way, but with that understood, there are no major hurdles here to deal with.

The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Adderall Diaries's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has consistent, if sometimes subtle, immersive qualities. Some of the more expected elements, like noisy party scenes or even some rambunctious lovemaking, offer excellent use of the surround channels, and the film's regular use of music (both source cues and a thumping score by Michael Andrews) also regularly utilize the side and rear channels. Dialogue is presented and cleanly and clearly, and dynamic range is rather wide for this sort of "kitchen sink" drama.

The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Pamela Romanowsky


• The Adderall Diaries: A Director's Perspective (1080p; 11:49) is an interesting interview with Romanowsky, whose first major feature length film credit this is (she contributed to the Franco produced portmanteau Tar , also known as The Color of Time).


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 9:47)

The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Adderall Diaries probably needed a more experienced hand in the writing and directing departments than Romanowsky was able to offer. She's clearly talented, but adapting a quasi-memoir of this sophistication, especially one with so many "meta" aspects, may have simply required more finesse than even an overly experienced elder could have achieved. There's an almost embarrassing amount of interesting material floating around this film, but it's all such a jumble that nothing ever resonates and many viewers will probably feel like they've been slipped some Adderall as a result. Technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.