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Rating: 5 out of 5
We all need a good hard drink sometimes in our lives. Hell, I have had plenty of good drinks in my lifetime. I’m used to a good Jack & Coke to wet my whistle. After a hard work day with some of my coworkers, we would get margaritas. There is nothing like a good drink. Don’t even get me started on how much I drank and partied in college. It was all about that Grey Goose, and it sure did get me feeling loose. Oh, those were the good times.
With good times, there can be some really dark times with alcohol. Alcoholism or alcohol use disorder is a chronic disease identified as uncontrollable drinking. It is the inability to control drinking due to a physical and emotional dependence on alcohol. Excessive alcohol use can lead to some significant problems in the long term that can affect the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, and immune system. Here are some stats from the World Health Organization. They estimated that in 2016, there were around 380 million people with alcoholism worldwide. In the United States alone, in 2015, about 17 million (7%) adults and 0.7 million (2.8%) of those aged 12 to 17 years of age were affected. Alcoholism has extreme effects as it reduces a person’s life expectancy by approximately ten years.
There are shows like Intervention that show some stories of people going through alcoholism or alcohol use disorder. When I first picked up the film, The Lost Weekend, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it was going to be a film where the main character had a comedic adventure where he/she never wanted to go through a weekend like that. I wasn’t prepared for a movie about an alcoholic writer and the spiral he went through with the bottle.
Don Birnam (Milland) is an alcoholic writer. He claims to be off the sauce, but his brother, Wick (Terry), and his girlfriend, Helen (Wyman), don’t believe that he kicked the sauce. They want to keep him sober and plan weekend trips; the only thing is that he hides bottles of alcohol around his apartment. This weekend, Don and Wick are heading to the country. While Wick and Helen are out, Don learns and steals money from the cleaning lady to go to a bar and gets drunk. Here his weekend quickly spirals out of control. He has trouble shaking his addiction with no money and hopping from bar to bar. Yet, he loves his beautiful girlfriend, Helen, and his writing talent. His ambition as a writer is hugely hampered by his alcoholism. As the days pass, Don soon has a weekend that will either sober him up or end up in the gutter like the rest of his empty bottles.
First off, I want to say bravo to director Billy Wilder. Wilder presented an accurate, honest look at the effects a person goes through with alcoholism. He started the film showing Don with smiles but in the first 5 minutes showed that he was reliant on alcohol as he hid it from his window. Going to the bar was fine to take one drink, but Wilder showed that the substance had a strong hold on Don as the days went on. Don destroyed his apartment when he forgot where he had put a bottle of rye. He went to Gloria’s place because he knew she liked him, but he just wanted cash. The two scenes that were telling were when Don walked around trying to pawn his typewriter on a holiday. You saw the sweat coming down from his dead. The second one was when Don ended up in a “Hangover Plaza.” The nurse said he would be back. Ending up there should make anyone sober, but like prison, it seems to bring people back. The ending scene with the bat and rat was crazy. Put that shit down, son.
Honestly, the person who should be applauded is Ray Milland as Don Birnam. Without his performance, the film would severely lack. Milland was such a force as Don that you couldn’t take your eyes away from him. It’s one thing to be a drunk, but Don had such potential, but you saw that the bottle had an extremely strong hold on him. Milland made sure to show it with his wild eyes and sweating. You saw the fear in his eyes while in the Hangover Plaza. Milland seemed to embody how much Don craved and loved alcohol.
The Lost Weekend is a great film that everyone should watch. I love me some cocktails, but after watching this film, it makes you want to stay away from it. Ray Milland is fantastic as the main character and embodied the character and his drunken ways. Billy Wilder did an incredible job with the direction and presenting this film. I’m just saying that you should definitely watch this film.
