I'm Losing You (1998) User Reviews

Didn't do it for me.

[Hermit C-2 · 5/10 · 8 October 2002]

Illness, death, and a family's reaction to it have been the subject of a multitude of films, but the potential there for high drama is so great that the vein could hardly be exhausted. When I first started watching "I'm Losing You" (and no, I didn't read the book) and saw Frank Langella's character receive his terminal bad news, I assumed the focus would be on him and how his family handled the crisis. I was surprised, then, when it turned out that the Grim Reaper was all over the place, stalking characters major and minor.

Which would have been fine if this film had been the great meditation on death and dying that it so obviously wants to be. Maybe there just wasn't enough time to thoroughly develop all the characters and plot elements, but I surely wouldn't have wanted a longer film. Consequently nothing in it really reached or impressed me. Particularly poorly handled, I thought, was Rosanna Arquette's character, whose mental breakdown and interest in/obsession with with a Jewish funeral ritual were not very well-explained, at least not to my satisfaction. The ritual, by the way, was interesting from a cultural and educational point of view, but as a part of the film it was my least favorite. I disliked Julie Ariola's pious character every time she was on the screen, for some reason. And I found myself again wondering why Arquette has such a hard time finding roles that are worthy of her.

Apparently many people found this film edifying, but I would proceed with caution. One thing proponents and detractors alike could probably agree on: if you're looking for a tear-jerker, go elsewhere. There probably wasn't a wet eye in the house when this film was playing.

I die, you die, they die

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 18 May 2003]

SPOILERS

This has to be one of the most unrelentingly depressing movies I have ever seen. From the very first scene, a pretentiously stylistic tableau, during which we learn that Perry Krohn (Langella), successful producer of a STAR TREK-type TV series has inoperable lung cancer, we are subjected to a never-ending stream of revelations (many of which are incredibly far-fetched and silly) relating to death: prospect of, impact of, nature of, coping with, reverberation through the generations of, irony of, cruelty of – and on and on and on… to the point at which death itself seems a preferable option to sitting through any more of this torture.

Although the film opens with Krohn's bad news, he is not the focal point of the movie. The screenplay roams from character to character, each of whom becomes a victim of death in one way or another. Probably the bulk of screen time is devoted to Bertie (McCarthy), Krohn's unsuccessful ex-alcoholic actor son, who in the space of 100 minutes (a surprisingly short running time for this kind of flick – one's tempted to suggest that the story deserves another hour to enable us to really get to know the characters, but the fear is that this would merely serve to prolong the torture) learns that his father has terminal cancer, loses his ex-wife and daughter to a car crash, and his lover to AIDS, and then gains a surrogate son. Believe me, the storyline is as ridiculous on the movie screen as it looks on the PC screen. Having said that, it does manage (just) to avoid descending to the level of soap opera sensibility – probably thanks to largely professional performances from a (too) large ensemble cast forced to battle against writer/director Wagner's unforgivable self-indulgence. The only drawbacks performance-wise are Andrew McCarthy who struggles at times in a role for which he is far too lightweight a performer, and Rosanna Arquette, who appears too old for her role and who, in an admittedly thankless role, is a little too overwrought.

While the movie's theme is abundantly clear, it's purpose is not. As a study of people's ability to cope and come to terms with death it is far too muddled and cagey (the death of Bertie's daughter and its impact on Bertie is handled particularly badly). As already mentioned, it fails to allow us to get to know the characters – a device that could have been especially effective with regards to Perry's character, but he disappears from the movie for large swathes of time – and so any message it may have been trying to convey is hopelessly lost.

To live and die in L.A.

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 4 May 2005]

Having read the book by Bruce Wagner, but not having seen the 1998 screen adaptation, we decided to take a look based on the strong cast in it. Mr. Wagner wrote the screen treatment of his own novel. This is a film that offers some interesting points, although, it appears it read much better in the page than what we watch on the screen.

The basic problem with the film is that we don't care much for these characters. They seem to have everything, but yet, they are incapable of connecting with one another. The revelation at the beginning of the film about Perry's grave illness doesn't bring his family to bond with one another in the face of what the future will bring.

The son Bertie is an aspiring actor who is going through a rough period in his life. Tragedy strikes in a way he didn't expect, yet, this man doesn't seem to register any emotion. The adopted girl, Rachel, gets too deep into an area that might give her closure with his dead parents. AIDS enters the picture in the form of Aubrey, the beautiful woman who is also having her own crisis in dealing with her reality.

Frank Langella, as Perry does a good job in his take of the rich man facing his own mortality. Andrew McCarthy tries his best to convey a certain degree of decency to his Bertie. Rosanna Arquette has one of the best opportunities in the film. Elizabeth Perkins's Aubrey is not seen too long for us to care enough for her. Salome Jens, an under used actress plays Perry's wife Diantha. Buck Henry, Amanda Donohue, Ed Begley Jr, and the rest of the cast make adequate contributions to the film.

Ultimately, the film, as presented by Mr. Wagner feels empty because we don't connect to these people at all.

Oncoglamorama

[matt-201 · 18 July 1999]

Bruce Wagner's Hollywood novels have a particular horror-movie frisson: a can't-turn-the-page-but-can't-stop-turning tension. A dark bill of goods read by a sardonic M.D. to a terminal patient, the typical Wagner story is L.A. loserdom braced onto a Renaissance canvas--a gossipy Movieline-magazine horror story given epic proportions. Wagner so loathes the calmly powerful, not-so-bright people who thwart him that he visits every kind of calamity on them--crack-induced strokes, cancer, AIDS, tabloid sex-torture. It's as if the power of his imagination and the boil of his frustration crashed into each other and made a monster hybrid--insider bitterness raised to a Mailerian scale, where the felicities of a crashed deal take on the properties of the goings-on in a Nazi death camp, or a terminal ward. A blurb in the jacket for Wagner's masterly "Force Majeure" read, "Wagner lavishes on Hollywood the kind of attention that novelists once lavished on sex, or the Second World War." Ain't it the truth: Wagner turns bellyaching into high opera.

Wagner's 1996 novel "I'm Losing You" was described by John Updike as "inhabiting a universe so cratered it's hard to turn the pages." The novel is a Boschian cry of despair from the bowels of Century City. In his new movie version, that Munchian shriek is turned into a soft, Cronenbergian whisper. The has-beens and never-weres of Wagner's ultimate dystopian L.A. are viewed not with sadomasochistic coolness here, but with gentleness and, dare I say it, love. There's nothing sentimental in this picture, and not a frame that isn't perfumed by death, but there is a quality that took me off guard. I'M LOSING YOU is a reminder, almost inaudible in this cratered blockbuster universe, of the humanistic potential of movies--the possibility of art as a guide for human beings to navigate their way out of hopeless predicaments. The insider edge is off the movie; unlike the book, it isn't about the perfectly poised name-drop. The movie might as well be taking place in Ohio: the substance of it is in its insight into beleaguered characters trying to buttress themselves with fame and money against catastrophes that claim the Hot 100 and Joe Nobody alike.

Wagner has assembled the strongest ensemble cast since BOOGIE NIGHTS. Rosanna Arquette is a strange overlap of the luminous and the feral as an art evaluater who makes a melodramatic discovery about her roots that leads to a reconnection with a mystical Jewish practice. Andrew McCarthy, as a fallen eighties actor, goes places you wouldn't imagine him capable of--he suggests a warmer, less remote Edward Norton. As a fortyish Hollywood rich kid who's HIV-positive, Elizabeth Perkins fairly scorches a hole in the movie--the rage of a magnificent woman pushed out of the box before her time lights up every scene she's in. And Amanda Donohoe, Buck Henry and Laraine Newman all have potent brief moments.

The pitfall to Wagner's genius is generally that he uses his gift for conjuring catastrophe only cruelly--it sometimes feels as if there's no possible response to his books except to faint. Here, he's put that talent to use: he questions the tactics we use to deal with the undealable. In a stroke of ill fortune endemic to the characters in Wagner's books, I'M LOSING YOU was released on the same day as EYES WIDE SHUT and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. I can only hope someone within the sound of my voice will see this beautiful, almost-great movie before, like its characters, it passes into the ether.

Total garbage

[Nimbo · 1/10 · 4 February 2000]

This movie was a mess. So many lines, so many characters, so little definition, so little logic. If I had paid I would have yelled for my money back. The performances were ludicrous. Andrew McCarthy was the pits. He gets the most stupid expressions on his face when acting. I guess you can guess I give this one a resounding '1'. Sorry, but I was unable to go lower.

Good Book. Bad movie.

[lazhuward · 3/10 · 14 June 2001]

This is an almost stereotypical example of a good book being turned into a bad movie. However, there are three interesting details that make this case unique: 1. The guy who wrote the book is actually the same guy who made the movie! 2. The book mocks Hollywood culture in many different ways, so making the book into a movie is somewhat ironic. 3. The movie is really, really bad.

Why isn't the movie as good as the book? There are too many reasons to list. Bad casting, the movie lacks the humor of the book, key scenes in the book aren't in the movie, etc. Pretty typical stuff.

If you've read the book, it might be worth it to see the movie though. It's almost unwatchable, but you might want to tough it out just so you can puzzle over it and ask: "What was Bruce Wagner thinking?"

Spoiler - on Rosanna Arquette's segment / character.

[sthnglrl · 3/10 · 9 January 2008]

Having not read the book, I have seen this movie twice and what I found to be very interesting was the emotionally driven and unbelievably heart-touching segment in which Rosanna Arquette learns about the Jewish ritual of body-washing, as a preparation of the body of young Tiffany for the grave.

This was beautifully integrated into what was let's be completely honest here, an extremely mis-directed movie that had too many characters, too many plot or story-lines, forcing the audience into visual, emotional, and auditory direction to the main topic of the film: DEATH.

Being completely candid, I did not find as great a talent and actress in Rosanna Arquette in her early career. "Desperately Seeking Susan" and "After Hours" are examples of this. It's been a wonderful journey to see her develop as an actress having become who she is today and still she seems to be overlooked for better roles.

On the flip side, I have enjoyed her documentary projects, "All We Are Saying", on music and musicians as well as, "Searching for Debra Winger", on the reality of older female actresses and the sometimes lack of available decent roles in film.

In agreement with someone else's comment here on IMDb, she seems to be partnered up with some bad choices for movies / films. And yet in her role in this film as in many others, it seems no matter how mixed up or lacking in deep character development the role might be, she always brings something to each role. And I would add, her abilities and talents have grown through the years - she gets better and better.

I wish there had been fewer "storylinesssss" and better character development. As far as being a film that dealt with death as a main character - it definitely did it's job there. Having seen many in my own family (and friends) die, in my lifetime, there are a great deal of occurrences, issues, scenes, directions in the film - to which I completely relate.

But as many others have stated, it's difficult to tolerate the lack of correlation amongst / between characters; way too much to have to "fix" or bring inherent value for tie-it-together meaning, as simply an audience member.

To close - my favorite actor: Rosanna Arquette

Favorite topic: Jewish Ritual body-washing

... this was somewhat educational for me and although I do not personally know anyone who has done this or participated in the ceremony, I found it heart-wrenchingly moving. For this segment alone - I would recommend just that over the entire movie any day.

Vote: Rosanna Arquette deserves a 10... no vote on others or the film.

What!?!?!

[lambiepie-2 · 6/10 · 27 July 2002]

Thank goodness for digital cable. I never heard of this film until it hit cable. I really wanted to like it, I really wanted to get into it, but the minute it tried to get my attention, it turned right around and lost it. The actors were okay with the material they were handed, but I felt it could have been so much better! The characters, although there were many, didn't seem to go anywhere although I knew they had to go somewhere. They didn't intertwine, I wanted to get to know them and the moment that it seemed like I would, the story went somewhere else and I got uninterested. I watched the film twice (for that is all they've showed it so far) seeing if I was missing something but both times, I was left empty. I have to admit that reading the responses regarding this film has more information than the film itself.

My suggestion?? The director Paul Thomas Anderson should have taken this one as a project, I believe it would have stuck to the book more and been a hell of a lot better.

Slice of death in L.A.

[telebob · 10/10 · 1 July 2000]

A thoughtful movie can be influential and instructive in guiding us through the obstacles and sometimes true horror of life. This is that kind of movie, and, if not a great one....certainly a very fine one. It deserves a 10.

A few years ago I had read Bruce Wagner's novel with horrified fascination...and I was suddenly shocked to be seeing it as a movie here, late at night, in little flyblown Costa Rica on the Movie Channel...at first I thought it looked familiar, and then..."my god, it's "I'm Losing You!" I had not even known it had been made.

Such a sad loss to have had "Eyes Wide Shut" or "Blair Witch" suck all the air out of the room and leave "I'm Losing You" to the video cutout rackjobbers. This is a strong and corrosive movie, and so sad. Perhaps it is no wonder it had no 'hit' potential....but if one ever wants a slice of the LA urban dystopia as a part of their research project in the year 3000, they couldn't do better than "I'm Losing You."

Rosanna Arquette and Elizabeth Perkins are truly remarkable, but then so is almost everyone else who is in this very real, very serious, melanomadrama.

A Meditation on Death and Dying: Reconstructing a Family

[gradyharp · 8/10 · 15 September 2005]

Bruce Wagner's screen adaptation of his novel I'M LOSING YOU has some of the more intelligent dialogue to be encountered in a film. Since Wagner also directed this little gem, brimming over with excellent actors, we can be assured that his message of death as a necessary component in the cycle of life is intact. Despite the dour content of the story this film actually leads to a credible sense of how deaths can ultimately be redemptive: it is all in how vulnerable we allow ourselves to become in coping with this life change.

The story is focused on a wealthy Los Angeles family headed by television producer of sci-fi series Perry Krohn (Frank Langella), married to a psychiatrist Diantha (Salome Jens) despite having a 'helper' mistress Mona (Amanda Donahue), 'stepfather' of a disillusioned daughter Rachel (Rosanna Arquette) and a has-been actor son Bertie (Andrew McCarthy) who makes a living selling back insurance policies to AIDS patients: the father has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and his attempts to set his will in order is the catalyst for the story. The son is separated from his ex-wife, a disturbed addicted woman Lidia (Gina Gershon) and the two fight over custody of their young child Tiffany (Aria Noelle Curzon). Complicating matters is the fact that Rachel has never been told until now that her biologic father murdered her mother and committed suicide AND that her stepfather had a onetime sexual fling with her mother.

Things begin to consistently fall apart: the son falls in love with one of the AIDS victims, Aubrey (Elizabeth Perkins), to whom he sells insurance who has a son and lives in horror that she will soon die and her son will be abandoned. About this same time Tiffany is killed in an automobile accident, the fault of her drugged out mother, and Rachel embraces her Jewish heritage by learning how to perform the body cleansing ritual performed as a loving act on the dead - the dead being Tiffany. And at this peak of crises, Aubrey dies in a hospital, succumbing to every complication known to AIDS.

How this fractured family comes together in the midst of all these losses and lifetime barriers to communication serves as the resolution of this complex but infinitely interesting story.

The actors all give bravura performances, relishing the smart dialogue and the multilayered meanings to each encounter captured by the fine cinematographer Rob Sweeney. This may not be a film for everyone, but for those seeking more form a film than entertainment will find much food for thought here. Recommended. Grady Harp

Everything that movies should be about, but rarely are.

[Toad-- · 8/10 · 12 November 2000]

I truly enjoyed watching this movie, which is driven by the people in it - I'm looking forward to reading some of Wagner's books now. The cast and characters are excellent, and I love it when I discover a movie that is driven by the people in it, rather than the explosions or car chases. Highly recommended.

This movie lost me and others watching.

[NS-5 · 29 August 1999]

To me, this movie was a "been there done that" type. There was nothing new or revealing in any manner of its presentation or otherwise. I tend to agree with reviewer on several movies that I rent but this movie was really hard to watch without prematurely rewinding.