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Perhaps the weirdest, most depressing film you could ever imagine to be named after an ’80s pop hit, I Melt With You follows four former college friends — Ron (Jeremy Piven), Jonathan (Rob Lowe), Richard (Thomas Jane) and Tim (Christian McKay) — as they reunite in Big Sur to celebrate Tim’s 44th birthday, a get-together that quickly turns ominous as their respective present-day personal and professional dissatisfactions (and, in some cases, tragedies) mix with memories of their shared past, particularly that of a pact they made in which they vowed to kill themselves if they found their lives unfulfilling at middle age. These guys know how to party, no? Dismissed by many as an indulgent mess, I Melt With You is actually an impressively bleak melodrama, with all four leads delivering completely dedicated (if occasionally over-the-top) performances as they discover self-actualization through self-destruction, drinking and drugging away at a beachside mansion; director Mark Pellington, no stranger to completely bizarre (and dangerous) situations after calling the shots on Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies, creates a sense of impending doom with his surrealist flourishes in both the cinematography and sound design. A difficult undertaking, to be sure, but a rewarding one for those unafraid to peer into dark places.
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