PARTY MONSTER
Starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green
Written and directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.
Opens Friday, November 21
Globe Cinema
From Seth Green and Macaulay Culkin wrestling for control of the narrative during the opening minutes of Party Monster, to Green's conversation with a giant rat near the end, almost everything about Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's look at New York's crazed club scene is superficial.
In this case, that's a good thing. Party Monster is based on Disco Bloodbath, James St. James's book about the Club Kids, a group of audacious partiers who ruled Manhattan's Limelight club in the late-’80s and early-’90s. Green plays St. James, whose status as the circuit's preferred enfant terrible wanes when Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin) infiltrates the scene and proceeds to turn himself into a flamboyant, androgynous messiah to a small group of drugged-out, postmodern dandies.
The film follows Alig’s rise to fame, through his relationship with superstar DJ Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama), to his arrest for the killing of his drug dealer, Angel (Wilson Cruz). Culkin still can't really act, but his creepy smile and hollow delivery make him perfect for the role of gingerbread psychopath Alig, whose obsession with image enslaved his personality, and eventually his humanity, entirely.
Like Alig, the film is often consumed by image. Michael Wilkinson's garish, fabulous costumes steal the show and often, the filmmakers get so caught up in re-creating the outrageous visual environment the Club Kids carried with them that other elements of the film get left behind. Many of the characters' relationships are underdeveloped (particularly the one between Alig and Angel), and as Alig spirals into drug meltdown, the picture gets mired in gloopy camera effects and stylistic overkill.
But the lack of substance ultimately adds to the mood – flamboyant unconcern underlined by apocalyptic decadence. And while Culkin seems to be good by accident, Green plays bored artifice with surprising range. Fittingly, it's his St. James who finally wins the right to tell the story – more often than not, Party Monster is his film. |
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