Less Than Zero (film)
Encyclopedia
Less Than Zero is a 1987 American drama film
loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis
' novel of the same name. The film stars Andrew McCarthy
as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas
to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz
) and his friend Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is also a drug addict
. The film presents a look at the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.
Less Than Zero received mixed reviews among critics. Ellis hated the film initially but his view of it later softened. He insists that the film bears no resemblance to his novel and felt that it was miscast with the exceptions of Downey and Spader.
) is a college freshman who returns home to Los Angeles
, California
, for Christmas to find things very different from the way he left them. His high school girlfriend, Blair (Jami Gertz
), has been having sex with his high school best friend, the now junkie Julian Wells (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is being hassled by his dealer, Rip (James Spader
), for the $50,000 he owes. What follows is Clay's effort to help clean up Julian, who has been exiled by his family because of his lying and stealing to fund his dependency on hard drugs, mainly crack
and powder cocaine
. Clay notices that Blair also has a smaller cocaine problem that has accompanied her modeling career, and eventually realizes that while he was gone Blair and Julian, both of whom decided to avoid college, banded together while their lives spiraled slowly out of control in a pampered L.A. subculture of rich decadent young adults.
During Clay's visit home, his relationship with Blair rekindles and Julian's attitude becomes more volatile — he was forced by Rip to become a prostitute
in order to sustain his fixes. It seems as if Clay and Blair are constantly going from one party to the next, throughout the film, trying to find Julian. After one extremely drug-fueled night, from which Clay and Blair nurse him back to an approximation of normal, Julian decides to quit and starts to make up with his father (Nicholas Pryor
). He then leaves town for Palm Springs where a big L.A. crowd has gone for a holiday party to meet Rip and tell him of his plans for sobriety. Rip is hosting a gay party in a private suite and plays Julian, luring him back to crack and hooking. Again looking for Julian, Clay and Blair drive to the Springs and Clay rescues Julian.
After a final violent face-off with Rip and his henchman, they escape and begin the long drive back to Los Angeles. The three drive through the night, with Julian reiterating promises of going clean again, though as he leaves the men's room at a gas station, Julian stumbles and falls, possibly from more drugs. Sometime after daylight, still on the road, Julian nods off onto Clay's shoulder. Clay soon realizes Julian is dead, presumably from an overdose, and pulls over. The film cuts to a long shot of Clay's stationary Red Corvette in the desert and then a slow chopper zoom until the car is most of frame and you see the three motionless people in the front seat. Clay and Blair then appear on a cemetery bench after Julian's funeral; Clay tells Blair about the death of Julian's mother when he was five and how tough Julian was as a kid. Clay then tells Blair he is going back east and wants her to go with him; she agrees.
The final scene shows the couple leaving town and then a still of Blair, Clay, and Julian at their graduation, the last time the three were happy together. We hear "Life Fades Away" by Roy Orbison
over the closing credits.
Also, in the book, Clay must decide whether he wants to continue his relationship with Blair, while in the film they have separated, Blair staying in LA and Clay attending school in New England, and Blair is now involved with Julian. Though Blair called him while he was back east, Clay seems to have given up on both of them. It is after the scene when Clay is swimming that Clay appears to have decided to re-involve himself with Blair and Julian, while in the book he seems uncertain he wants to continue with her the whole time, even saying at one point that he never loved Blair. Also, in the film, Clay is determined to clean up Julian's drug abuse and debts, but in the book Julian's behavior only seems to disillusion Clay with the people in Los Angeles even more. In addition, many of the characters in the movie never existed in the book.
Other minor changes include: Clay, Blair, and Julian are not blonde and tan like they were in the novel. Rip is Julian's dealer in the movie, when in the book Rip was Clay's dealer (Clay was a frequent drug user in the book) and Julian is a dealer himself, but is also indebted to a dealer named Finn; in the book, Clay is bisexual, while in the film, he's strictly heterosexual, and Clay's friend Trent, who was a major character in the novel, has a greatly reduced role in the film.
Many important, plot-bearing scenes from the book were also removed in the translation to film. These removals are arguably the most obvious strays from Ellis' novel. Of these are: a scene describing in great detail (to show the importance, contrary to the rest of the novel's loose details) Clay and Blair running over a coyote and Clay seeing it die; a scene where Clay and friends see a dead body in an alley and later watch a snuff film, which helped show how exposed to the world the teenagers were at such a young age; and the famous final scene where a 12-year-old girl is tied to a bed, kept stoned on hard drugs, and offered for rape in Rip's apartment.
would finance it.
The purchase was sponsored by Scott Rudin
and Larry Mark, Vice Presidents of Production. The book went on to become a best seller but the producers had to create a coherent story and change Clay, the central character, because they felt that he was too passive. They also eliminated his bisexuality and casual drug use. Worth hired Pulitzer Prize
-winning playwright Michael Cristofer
to write the screenplay. He stuck close to the tone of the novel and had Clay take drugs but did not make him bisexual. The studio felt that Cristofer's script was too harsh for a commercial film.
Fox then assigned the film to producer Jon Avnet
who had made Risky Business
. He felt that Cristofer's script was "so depressing and degrading." Avnet instead wanted to transform "a very extreme situation" into "a sentimental story about warmth, caring and tenderness in an atmosphere hostile to those kinds of emotions". Studio executives and Avnet argued over the amount of decadence depicted in the film that would not alienate audiences. Larry Gordon, President of Fox, and who had approved the purchase of the book, was replaced by Alan Horn who was then replaced by Leonard Goldberg. Goldberg found the material distasteful but Barry Diller
, the Chairman of Fox, wanted to make the film.
Harley Peyton
was hired to write the script and completed three drafts. In his version, Clay is no longer amoral or passive. The studio still considered the material edgy and kept the budget under $8 million. Marek Kanievska
was hired to direct because he had dealt with ambivalent sexuality and made unlikeable characters appealing in his previous film, Another Country. The studio wanted to appeal to actor Andrew McCarthy's teenage girl fans without alienating an older audience.
Cinematographer Edward Lachman
remembers that originally the film was a lot "edgier" and that the studio took it away from Kanievska. He also recalled a scene he shot with the music group Red Hot Chili Peppers
: "The Red Hot Chili Peppers were in that film and the studio became very conservative and they said, 'Oh the band, they're sweaty and they don't have their shirts on.' They destroyed an incredible Steadicam shot, all because they had to cut around them being bare-chested".
At an early test screening, the studio recruited an audience between the ages of 15 and 24; they hated Robert Downey Jr.'s character. As a result, new scenes were shot to make his and Jami Gertz's character more repentant. For example, a high school graduation scene was shot to lighten the mood by showing the three main characters as good friends during better times.
s eighth weekend, Hello Again
s opening, and Baby Boom
s fifth weekend. It went on to gross $12,396,383 in North America.
gave it two-out-of-four stars: "Bret Ellis' novel is sanitized into pointlessness, although an entirely-faithful adaptation would have surely turned everyone off; try to imagine this picture with Eddie Bracken
, Veronica Lake
and Sonny Tufts
."
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes
gave it a score of 54% based on a weighted average of 24 reviews.
In the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Mr. Downey gives a performance that is desperately moving, with the kind of emotion that comes as a real surprise in these surroundings."
Rita Kempley, in her review for the Washington Post, called the film, "noodle-headed and faint-hearted, a shallow swipe at a serious problem, with a happily-ever-after ending yet."
In Newsweek
, David Ansen
wrote, "Imagine Antonioni
making a high-school public-service movie and you'll have an inkling of the movie's high-toned silliness."
In the Chicago Sun-Times
, Roger Ebert
gave Less Than Zero a four-star review, noting that the "movie knows cocaine inside out and paints a portrait of drug addiction that is all the more harrowing because it takes place in the Beverly Hills fast lane...The movie's three central performances are flawless...[Robert Downey, Jr's] acting here is so real, so subtle and so observant that it's scary...The whole movie looks brilliantly superficial, and so Downey's predicament is all the more poignant: He is surrounded by all of this, he is in it and of it, and yet he cannot have it".
New York
magazine's David Denby
wrote, "In many ways, Less than Zero is a cynical, manipulative job. Yet, the movie has something great in it, something that could legitimately move teenagers (or anyone else): Robert Downey Jr. as the disintegrating Julian, a performance in which beautiful exuberance gives way horrifying to a sudden, startled sadness".
Upon its initial release, Ellis hated the film. While promoting the book Lunar Park he said he has gotten very "sentimental" about it and has "really warmed up to it now. I've accepted it".
He admits that the film bears no resemblance to his novel but that it captured, "a certain youth culture during that decade that no other movie caught", and felt that it was miscast with the exceptions of Downey and James Spader. Furthermore he has said, "I think that movie is gorgeous, and the performances that I thought were shaky seem much better now. Like, Jami Gertz seems much better to me now than she did 20 years ago. It’s something I can watch".
The film was voted as the 22nd best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times
writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".
announced that Ellis had nearly finished Imperial Bedrooms
, his seventh novel and the sequel
to Less Than Zero. Ellis has revealed that the film's main characters are all still alive in the present day, and has already begun looking ahead to the possibility of a film adaptation. Ellis feels that interpreting it as a sequel to the 1987 Less Than Zero adaptation "would be a great idea" and hopes to be able to reunite Downey Jr., Spader, McCarthy, and Gertz should FOX option the sequel.
According to the Internet Movie Database
, a sequel is intended to follow in 2012, entitled Imperial Bedrooms.
. It peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200
and 22 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
and was certified gold on February 8, 1988.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
' novel of the same name. The film stars Andrew McCarthy
Andrew McCarthy
Andrew Thomas McCarthy is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the 1980s films St. Elmo's Fire, Mannequin, Weekend at Bernie's, Pretty in Pink, and Less Than Zero, and more recently for his role in the television shows Lipstick Jungle, White Collar and Royal Pains.-Career:McCarthy...
as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz
Jami Gertz
Jami Beth Gertz is an American actress. Gertz is known for her early roles in the films Sixteen Candles, Crossroads, The Lost Boys, Less Than Zero, the 1980s TV series Square Pegs with Sarah Jessica Parker, and 1996's Twister, as well as for her role as Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom Still Standing...
) and his friend Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is also a drug addict
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
. The film presents a look at the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.
Less Than Zero received mixed reviews among critics. Ellis hated the film initially but his view of it later softened. He insists that the film bears no resemblance to his novel and felt that it was miscast with the exceptions of Downey and Spader.
Plot
Clay Easton (Andrew McCarthyAndrew McCarthy
Andrew Thomas McCarthy is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the 1980s films St. Elmo's Fire, Mannequin, Weekend at Bernie's, Pretty in Pink, and Less Than Zero, and more recently for his role in the television shows Lipstick Jungle, White Collar and Royal Pains.-Career:McCarthy...
) is a college freshman who returns home to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, for Christmas to find things very different from the way he left them. His high school girlfriend, Blair (Jami Gertz
Jami Gertz
Jami Beth Gertz is an American actress. Gertz is known for her early roles in the films Sixteen Candles, Crossroads, The Lost Boys, Less Than Zero, the 1980s TV series Square Pegs with Sarah Jessica Parker, and 1996's Twister, as well as for her role as Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom Still Standing...
), has been having sex with his high school best friend, the now junkie Julian Wells (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is being hassled by his dealer, Rip (James Spader
James Spader
James Todd Spader is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in movies such as Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Crash, Stargate, and Secretary...
), for the $50,000 he owes. What follows is Clay's effort to help clean up Julian, who has been exiled by his family because of his lying and stealing to fund his dependency on hard drugs, mainly crack
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
and powder cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
. Clay notices that Blair also has a smaller cocaine problem that has accompanied her modeling career, and eventually realizes that while he was gone Blair and Julian, both of whom decided to avoid college, banded together while their lives spiraled slowly out of control in a pampered L.A. subculture of rich decadent young adults.
During Clay's visit home, his relationship with Blair rekindles and Julian's attitude becomes more volatile — he was forced by Rip to become a prostitute
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
in order to sustain his fixes. It seems as if Clay and Blair are constantly going from one party to the next, throughout the film, trying to find Julian. After one extremely drug-fueled night, from which Clay and Blair nurse him back to an approximation of normal, Julian decides to quit and starts to make up with his father (Nicholas Pryor
Nicholas Pryor
Nicholas Pryor is an American film and television actor.Pryor was born Nicholas David Probst in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Dorothy and J. Stanley Probst, a pharmaceutical manufacturer....
). He then leaves town for Palm Springs where a big L.A. crowd has gone for a holiday party to meet Rip and tell him of his plans for sobriety. Rip is hosting a gay party in a private suite and plays Julian, luring him back to crack and hooking. Again looking for Julian, Clay and Blair drive to the Springs and Clay rescues Julian.
After a final violent face-off with Rip and his henchman, they escape and begin the long drive back to Los Angeles. The three drive through the night, with Julian reiterating promises of going clean again, though as he leaves the men's room at a gas station, Julian stumbles and falls, possibly from more drugs. Sometime after daylight, still on the road, Julian nods off onto Clay's shoulder. Clay soon realizes Julian is dead, presumably from an overdose, and pulls over. The film cuts to a long shot of Clay's stationary Red Corvette in the desert and then a slow chopper zoom until the car is most of frame and you see the three motionless people in the front seat. Clay and Blair then appear on a cemetery bench after Julian's funeral; Clay tells Blair about the death of Julian's mother when he was five and how tough Julian was as a kid. Clay then tells Blair he is going back east and wants her to go with him; she agrees.
The final scene shows the couple leaving town and then a still of Blair, Clay, and Julian at their graduation, the last time the three were happy together. We hear "Life Fades Away" by Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
over the closing credits.
Cast
- Andrew McCarthyAndrew McCarthyAndrew Thomas McCarthy is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the 1980s films St. Elmo's Fire, Mannequin, Weekend at Bernie's, Pretty in Pink, and Less Than Zero, and more recently for his role in the television shows Lipstick Jungle, White Collar and Royal Pains.-Career:McCarthy...
as Clay Easton - Jami GertzJami GertzJami Beth Gertz is an American actress. Gertz is known for her early roles in the films Sixteen Candles, Crossroads, The Lost Boys, Less Than Zero, the 1980s TV series Square Pegs with Sarah Jessica Parker, and 1996's Twister, as well as for her role as Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom Still Standing...
as Blair - Robert Downey, Jr. as Julian Wells
- James SpaderJames SpaderJames Todd Spader is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in movies such as Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Crash, Stargate, and Secretary...
as Rip - Nicholas PryorNicholas PryorNicholas Pryor is an American film and television actor.Pryor was born Nicholas David Probst in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Dorothy and J. Stanley Probst, a pharmaceutical manufacturer....
as Benjamin Wells - Tony BillTony BillGerard Anthony "Tony" Bill is an American actor, producer, and director. He produced the 1973 movie The Sting, for which he shared the Academy Award for Best Picture with Michael Phillips and Julia Phillips...
as Bradford Easton - Donna Mitchell as Elaine Easton
- Michael BowenMichael Bowen (actor)Michael Bowen is an American actor. Films he has appeared in include Jackie Brown, Magnolia, and Less Than Zero. Bowen also had a recurring role as Danny Pickett on the ABC television series, Lost....
as Hop - Sarah Buxton as Markie
- Lisanne FalkLisanne FalkLisanne Falk is an American actress and film producer.She played the role of Heather McNamara in the black comedy film Heathers .Falk is also a former child model who worked at the Ford Modeling Agency with a young Brooke Shields...
as Patti - Michael Greene as Robert Wells
- Brad PittBrad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
(uncredited) as Partygoer / Preppie Guy at Fight - Christopher MalekiChristopher MalekiChristopher Maleki is an American soap opera actor and photographer. He is best known for portraying the role of Herbert "Spike" Lester on Passions.-Filmography:*Supah Ninjas - X *Finding Hope Now - Mr...
(uncredited) as Guy at Party
Departures from the book
The film focuses on a strong anti-drug message, something that never existed in the novel, rather than the emptiness of the characters' lives as displayed in the novel.Also, in the book, Clay must decide whether he wants to continue his relationship with Blair, while in the film they have separated, Blair staying in LA and Clay attending school in New England, and Blair is now involved with Julian. Though Blair called him while he was back east, Clay seems to have given up on both of them. It is after the scene when Clay is swimming that Clay appears to have decided to re-involve himself with Blair and Julian, while in the book he seems uncertain he wants to continue with her the whole time, even saying at one point that he never loved Blair. Also, in the film, Clay is determined to clean up Julian's drug abuse and debts, but in the book Julian's behavior only seems to disillusion Clay with the people in Los Angeles even more. In addition, many of the characters in the movie never existed in the book.
Other minor changes include: Clay, Blair, and Julian are not blonde and tan like they were in the novel. Rip is Julian's dealer in the movie, when in the book Rip was Clay's dealer (Clay was a frequent drug user in the book) and Julian is a dealer himself, but is also indebted to a dealer named Finn; in the book, Clay is bisexual, while in the film, he's strictly heterosexual, and Clay's friend Trent, who was a major character in the novel, has a greatly reduced role in the film.
Many important, plot-bearing scenes from the book were also removed in the translation to film. These removals are arguably the most obvious strays from Ellis' novel. Of these are: a scene describing in great detail (to show the importance, contrary to the rest of the novel's loose details) Clay and Blair running over a coyote and Clay seeing it die; a scene where Clay and friends see a dead body in an alley and later watch a snuff film, which helped show how exposed to the world the teenagers were at such a young age; and the famous final scene where a 12-year-old girl is tied to a bed, kept stoned on hard drugs, and offered for rape in Rip's apartment.
Production
Ellis' book was originally optioned by producer Marvin Worth for $7,500 before its publication in June 1985 with the understanding that 20th Century Fox20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
would finance it.
The purchase was sponsored by Scott Rudin
Scott Rudin
Scott Rudin is an American film producer and a theatrical producer.-Early life and work:Scott Rudin was born in New York City, NY, on July 14, 1958, and raised in the town of Baldwin on Long Island. At the age of sixteen, he started working as an assistant to theatre producer Kermit Bloomgarden...
and Larry Mark, Vice Presidents of Production. The book went on to become a best seller but the producers had to create a coherent story and change Clay, the central character, because they felt that he was too passive. They also eliminated his bisexuality and casual drug use. Worth hired Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning playwright Michael Cristofer
Michael Cristofer
Michael Ivan Cristofer is an American playwright, filmmaker and actor. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for The Shadow Box in 1977....
to write the screenplay. He stuck close to the tone of the novel and had Clay take drugs but did not make him bisexual. The studio felt that Cristofer's script was too harsh for a commercial film.
Fox then assigned the film to producer Jon Avnet
Jon Avnet
Jonathan Michael "Jon" Avnet is an American director, writer and producer.-Early life:Avnet was born in Brooklyn, the son of Joan Bertha and Lester Francis Avnet, a corporate executive and electronics distributor. He attended Great Neck North High School in Great Neck, New York...
who had made Risky Business
Risky Business
Risky Business is a 1983 American teen comedy-drama film written by Paul Brickman in his directorial debut. It stars Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. The hit film launched Cruise to stardom.-Plot:...
. He felt that Cristofer's script was "so depressing and degrading." Avnet instead wanted to transform "a very extreme situation" into "a sentimental story about warmth, caring and tenderness in an atmosphere hostile to those kinds of emotions". Studio executives and Avnet argued over the amount of decadence depicted in the film that would not alienate audiences. Larry Gordon, President of Fox, and who had approved the purchase of the book, was replaced by Alan Horn who was then replaced by Leonard Goldberg. Goldberg found the material distasteful but Barry Diller
Barry Diller
Barry Charles Diller is the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp and the media executive responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting.-Early life:...
, the Chairman of Fox, wanted to make the film.
Harley Peyton
Harley Peyton
Harley Peyton is an American television producer and writer. He worked in both capacities on Twin Peaks and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his writing on the series. He went to Harvard and Stanford.-Awards and nominations:-References:...
was hired to write the script and completed three drafts. In his version, Clay is no longer amoral or passive. The studio still considered the material edgy and kept the budget under $8 million. Marek Kanievska
Marek Kanievska
Marek Kanievska is a British film director. His films have won various awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Florence Film Festival.-Film:*The First Day - short film*Another Country...
was hired to direct because he had dealt with ambivalent sexuality and made unlikeable characters appealing in his previous film, Another Country. The studio wanted to appeal to actor Andrew McCarthy's teenage girl fans without alienating an older audience.
Cinematographer Edward Lachman
Edward Lachman
Edward Lachman A.S.C. is an American cinematographer. Lachman is mostly associated with the American independent film movement, and has served as director of photography on films by Todd Haynes and I'm Not There in 2007 and Steven Soderbergh such as Erin Brockovich ...
remembers that originally the film was a lot "edgier" and that the studio took it away from Kanievska. He also recalled a scene he shot with the music group Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
: "The Red Hot Chili Peppers were in that film and the studio became very conservative and they said, 'Oh the band, they're sweaty and they don't have their shirts on.' They destroyed an incredible Steadicam shot, all because they had to cut around them being bare-chested".
At an early test screening, the studio recruited an audience between the ages of 15 and 24; they hated Robert Downey Jr.'s character. As a result, new scenes were shot to make his and Jami Gertz's character more repentant. For example, a high school graduation scene was shot to lighten the mood by showing the three main characters as good friends during better times.
Box office
Less Than Zero opened on November 8, 1987 in 871 theaters and made US$3,008,987 at #4 up against Fatal AttractionFatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction is a 1987 American thriller blended with horror, directed by Adrian Lyne and stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. The film centers around a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end, resulting in emotional blackmail, stalking...
s eighth weekend, Hello Again
Hello Again (film)
Hello Again is a 1987 romantic fantasy-comedy film, directed and produced by Frank Perry, written by Susan Isaacs and starring Shelley Long, Judith Ivey, Gabriel Byrne, Corbin Bernsen, Sela Ward, Austin Pendleton, Carrie Nye, Robert Lewis, Madeleine Potter, Thor Fields and Illeana...
s opening, and Baby Boom
Baby Boom (film)
Baby Boom is a 1987 comedy film starring Diane Keaton. The film also launched a subsequent television show starring Kate Jackson, running from 1988 to 1989. The original music score was composed by Bill Conti and the cinematography was by William A. Fraker....
s fifth weekend. It went on to gross $12,396,383 in North America.
Critical response
The film received mixed reviews from critics; film historian Leonard MaltinLeonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
gave it two-out-of-four stars: "Bret Ellis' novel is sanitized into pointlessness, although an entirely-faithful adaptation would have surely turned everyone off; try to imagine this picture with Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
, Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan's Travels and her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s, and was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle...
and Sonny Tufts
Sonny Tufts
Sonny Tufts was a United States film actor....
."
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gave it a score of 54% based on a weighted average of 24 reviews.
In the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Mr. Downey gives a performance that is desperately moving, with the kind of emotion that comes as a real surprise in these surroundings."
Rita Kempley, in her review for the Washington Post, called the film, "noodle-headed and faint-hearted, a shallow swipe at a serious problem, with a happily-ever-after ending yet."
In Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
wrote, "Imagine Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
making a high-school public-service movie and you'll have an inkling of the movie's high-toned silliness."
In the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave Less Than Zero a four-star review, noting that the "movie knows cocaine inside out and paints a portrait of drug addiction that is all the more harrowing because it takes place in the Beverly Hills fast lane...The movie's three central performances are flawless...[Robert Downey, Jr's] acting here is so real, so subtle and so observant that it's scary...The whole movie looks brilliantly superficial, and so Downey's predicament is all the more poignant: He is surrounded by all of this, he is in it and of it, and yet he cannot have it".
New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine's David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
wrote, "In many ways, Less than Zero is a cynical, manipulative job. Yet, the movie has something great in it, something that could legitimately move teenagers (or anyone else): Robert Downey Jr. as the disintegrating Julian, a performance in which beautiful exuberance gives way horrifying to a sudden, startled sadness".
Upon its initial release, Ellis hated the film. While promoting the book Lunar Park he said he has gotten very "sentimental" about it and has "really warmed up to it now. I've accepted it".
He admits that the film bears no resemblance to his novel but that it captured, "a certain youth culture during that decade that no other movie caught", and felt that it was miscast with the exceptions of Downey and James Spader. Furthermore he has said, "I think that movie is gorgeous, and the performances that I thought were shaky seem much better now. Like, Jami Gertz seems much better to me now than she did 20 years ago. It’s something I can watch".
The film was voted as the 22nd best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".
Sequel
On April 14, 2009, MTV NewsMTV News
MTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...
announced that Ellis had nearly finished Imperial Bedrooms
Imperial Bedrooms
Imperial Bedrooms is a novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Released on June 15, 2010, it is the sequel to Less Than Zero, Ellis' 1985 bestselling literary debut, which was shortly followed by a film adaptation in 1987. Imperial Bedrooms revisits Less Than Zeros self-destructive and...
, his seventh novel and the sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
to Less Than Zero. Ellis has revealed that the film's main characters are all still alive in the present day, and has already begun looking ahead to the possibility of a film adaptation. Ellis feels that interpreting it as a sequel to the 1987 Less Than Zero adaptation "would be a great idea" and hopes to be able to reunite Downey Jr., Spader, McCarthy, and Gertz should FOX option the sequel.
According to the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
, a sequel is intended to follow in 2012, entitled Imperial Bedrooms.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack containing a variety of music types was released on November 6, 1987 by Def Jam RecordingsDef Jam Recordings
Def Jam Recordings is an American record label, focused primarily on hip hop and urban music, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as a part of The Island Def Jam Motown Music Group...
. It peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and 22 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...
and was certified gold on February 8, 1988.