Less Than Zero

Overview

This drama about affluent Los Angeles teens is taken from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Clay (Andrew McCarthy) is a college freshman who returns home during Christmas break. Clay's old flame Blair (Jamie Gertz) is now more interested in her new beau Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), the fun-loving party boy with a penchant for drugs. While Clay tries to rekindle a thing with Blair, Julian becomes addicted to cocaine and starts freebasing. Julian's friends try halfheartedly to intervene, with no success. Soon he is so far in debt to drug dealer Rip (James Spader) that Julian becomes a male prostitute, whoring for enough money for his next fix. Michael Bowen co-stars with Tony Bill and Nicholas Pryor in this trip into the seamy world of darkness in sunny California.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/05/2002
UPC:	0024543025184
Original Release:	1987
Rating:	R
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Full Frame, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[monaural, Dolby Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:38:00
Sales rank:	9,350

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Robert Downey Jr.	Julian
Jami Gertz	Blair
James Spader	Rip
Tony Bill	Bradford Easton
Andrew McCarthy	Clay Easton
Nicholas Pryor	Benjamin Wells
Donna Mitchell	Elaine Easton
Michael Bowen	Hop
Sarah Buxton	Markie
Lisanne Falk	Patti
Michael Greene	Robert Wells
Neith Hunter	Alana
Afton Smith	Kim
Brian Wimmer	Trent
Kelly Wolf	Lile
Flea	Musician #1
Jayne Modean	Cindy
Jude Mussetter	Alice
Jessica Puscas	Little Girl
Eric Walker	Seth Wells
Scott Warner	Teenager #1
Brittain Frye	Teenager #2
Afrika Islam	D.J
Jeannette Kerner	Margery Easton
Thomas Newman	Composer
Rick Rubin	Composer

Technical Credits

Michael Cristofer

Harley Peyton

Jon Avnet	Producer
Marek Kanievska	Director
Jordan Kerner	Producer
Marvin Worth	Producer
Michael Cristofer	Screenwriter
Harley Peyton	Screenwriter
David Rubin	Casting
Glenn Berkovitz	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

If you’re among those who recall the 1980s as a decade of wretched excess, you’ll find validation in Less than Zero, the melancholy but trenchant 1987 screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s bestselling novel. Ellis chronicled the unsavory, even nihilistic antics of several Beverly Hills youths, children of privilege who become morally and spiritually bankrupt as a result of their dissolute lifestyles. In the film adaptation Andrew McCarthy portrays the author’s protagonist, Clay, who returns home for Christmas vacation following a semester at an eastern college. No longer dependent on the meaningless thrills provided by aimless sex and reckless drug use, he touts sobriety to ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) but fails to convince his best friend, Julian (Robert Downey Jr.), a hopelessly addicted loser who eventually plunges into an abyss of degradation. Director Marek Kanievska (Where the Money Is) takes his viewers on a guided tour of L.A.’s seamy subculture, circa 1985; brainless bimbos and predatory pushers, resplendent in their Rodeo Drive fashions, frequent decadent nightclubs and attend drug-sodden orgies in luxury condos and palatial homes. It’s a harrowing and unforgettable journey, and one that now seems sadly prophetic as well, given how closely Downey’s real-life behavior, in the years since this film was first released, has invited comparisons to his character’s.