Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I won't bother with recounting the plot--plenty of others here have done that--but I will give some thoughts from the perspective of a 40-something who remembers fondly the movie and the times from whence it came.I remember hating this movie when I first saw it back in the day. I'd read half the novel and hated that too. My main memory of both of them, oddly enough, was the Coma Baby. It features heavily in the book but somewhat less so in the movie.Watching it again so many years later and so many years out from the 80s, I was surprised to find myself enjoying it. Perhaps it was a nostalgia thing. My mind was certainly flooding with associated memories. 1988 was the year I finished high school. I was soon to leave my little red-neck country town and move to the big smoke where a whole new life would begin (and there have been at least three more since then!).Some positives: I'm a huge Donald Fagen/Steely Dan fan, so Fagen's soundtrack was appreciated. It doesn't really sound like his regular stuff (until the very end), and was, frankly, often quite cheesy and even out of place at times. But I convinced myself I liked it. Other Fagen fans may also. The movie really grabs the 80s very effectively. Nightclubs, hair, blow, the whole bit. There is a surprising appearance from the wonderful Jason Robards which, shamefully, is uncredited according to IMDb. Considering the size of his role this is kind of odd.Negatives: Phoebe Cates seemed completely unconvincing as a model and Michael J. Fox was completely unconvincing as a...sorry, but, hey...as a grown-up. He's never really any different from how he was in Back to the Future or even Family Ties. He's still all got up in jeans and a suit jacket, skipping all over the place, and gulping, "Shucks" (at least seemingly). No disrespect to the guy. Just that this movie reminds that he was never so well suited to anything with pretensions to being serious. And that last point sums up the problems with this film: it eventually becomes apparent that the movie is trying to be taken seriously. It just doesn't work though. A pretentious novel as starting place doesn't help. Ham acting and cheese dialog don't help none neither.Still, an enjoyable time capsule. Kiefer does OK as wise-a** friend. The wonderful Frances Sternhagen, an appearance from the then-soon-to-be-late John Houseman, and even the magnificent William Hickey. Tracy Pollan is gorgeous and Swoosie Kurtz is her usual charming self. The ending is quite poignant, featuring Dianne Wiest, but isn't enough to really justify getting there.If you're 40-something, watch this with ice cream and snacks on a lazy weekday evening. If you're younger or older than that...probably don't bother, coz it ain't really that great.

I was fooled by comments here into watching this one. It is, in a sense, all flashback without an establishing context. We don't learn until the end that much of Fox's problem results from his mother's death. The other reason -- the 'divorce' -- is made much of but no context for that is established. So -- he drinks, snorts, and fails in his job as a fact-checker for a Vanity Fair type of magazine. And -- so what? The motivation seems just to be self-destruction, and that is not particularly interesting. I suppose the Robards character (like the coma baby) is a 'reflector' of the main character. But the Robards character seems actually to have had a life at some point in the distant past. What is he doing now? Is he still holding down a job? Why was Fox's character broke at some points yet affluent at others? Can anyone drink vodka all day, snort, and still function? His treatment of his brother was not only nasty, but unmotivated. What was the point of the ferret episode? The main character's equation of his friend and ex-wife at the end was incomprehensible. This is an incoherent ramble. No story. Tedious and radically un-involving.

The 1980's in New York were all about conspicuous consumption: grabbing everything that the world owed you (and then some) and doing blow. Lots and lots of blow."Bright Lights, Big City" is my favorite 80's cocaine nightmare. It features Michael J. Fox as a yuppie fact-checker at an upscale magazine whose mother's death has forced him into an aborted marriage and a coke hobby that's slowly destroying him. First, I have to praise Michael J. Fox for taking this role, playing completely against type at the height of his career. This movie is made even richer if you've seen Fox in "The Secret Of My Success" as "Bright Lights" plays like the flip-side version in the bizarro world.In "Success" Fox can do no wrong... in "Bright Lights" his character Jamie can do no right. Jamie, from Kansas, has never dealt with his mother's painful death from cancer, and has escaped to New York to deny. His marriage to a beautiful girl proved to be a sham; she becomes a model and leaves him for the high life and he's left with even more pain. How do you get numb when it hurts this bad? In New York in the 80's the solution is simple: hook up with a yuppie scum in the form of Kiefer Sutherland and start snorting.But the nightmare continues... Frances Sternhagen- as Jamie's boss and substitute mother figure- keeps finding errors in his work as his lifestyle spirals further and further into insanity. His sloppiness is compounded by the personal shame she seems to feel for him... her love makes it WORSE. After the inevitable termination his co-worker Megan (Swoosie Kurtz) invites him to her place for a sympathy dinner. And what does Jaime do? He ransacks her medicine cabinet and tries to molest her on the couch. Ouch...But this is precisely what makes "Bright Lights" a good movie... based on the circumstances you're rooting AGAINST the hero, getting off on his misery and failure. Maybe this reverse empathy stems from fear of being in the same situation... whatever the reason, it Works, and makes the movie almost a guilty pleasure. This was probably the most mature performance Fox ever gave, and the supporting cast- Sternhagen, Sutherland, John Houseman, Dianne Wiest- are superb."Bright Lights, Big City" is a brilliant snapshot of a lost soul in a lost world... it's a lost classic.GRADE: A- (If you enjoy the 80's Cocaine Nightmare genre I highly suggest "Less Than Zero," "American Psycho," and pretty much anything with James Spader)

You guys have got to be kidding---this is one of the worst movies ever made, for one simple reason: not only does Michael J. Fox's character not give a crap about anyone but himself, but he is aided along by the fact that every other character in the movie cares ONLY about him! None of them have lives; all of their lives revolve around HIM, and for no reason, since there's nothing interesting about him. A typical example of how outrageous this can be is when he calls the character played by his real-life wife Tracy Pollan on the phone at 3am on a weeknight, and she's not even annoyed that he woke her up. She's all bright & bubbly & "Oh Hi Jamie, what's up? What can I do for you?" Everyone feels overwhelming sympathy for him just because he was (justifiably) fired from his job as a magazine fact checker, for heaven's sake. WHO CARES?? BTW there is another film w/William Hurt called "Accidental Tourist" that has the exact same problem: no one cares about anything except the self-absorbed character, who is boring beyond belief. Avoid these films like the plague!