Boogie Nights (1997) Review

 

Boogie Nights (1997)

Boogie Nights follows Eddie Adams, who with the help of porn director Jack Horner, is transformed into an adult-film superstar. A toxic combination of drugs and egotism however, threatens to send him back down to rock bottom. 

This is probably one of the more surprising films I’ve ever watched because it really can’t be judged by its surface (ya know, a movie about the porn industry). As director Paul Thomas Anderson put it, it’s about a guy with a big dick, plain and simple, and the ups and downs that inevitably come with such a blessing. Which is obviously being a little facetious. But no, Boogie Nights is more appropriately about family. These are a group of people who do everything together, have witnessed special, intimate moments like no others, and have a nurturing bond that makes it more than just about sexual gratification. They are constantly searching for love, validation, and dignity and will go to great lengths to discover just how to get it. And they find it, but usually in the most fucked up ways. Ways that will land them in dangerous, embarrassing, and/or heartbreaking situations in their search to be seen. 

I’d love to say that things end on a happy note but Anderson goes to great lengths to ensure none of these characters develop in any way imaginable. By movies end, they’re right back where they started, bound to fall into the same cycle as before, stuck in an endless loop as time passes them by. 

The film boasts an epic cast, starring Thomas Jane, Alfred Molina, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, and Mark Wahlberg. It’s so hard to pick just a few stand outs from this because genuinely every performance was so uniquely well done. Wahlberg is naturally terrific, considering this was right up his alley during his Marky Mark days, but it’s Reynolds and Moore who really shine, acting as the mother and father (in a fucked up way I guess) that really ties everyone together and in turn brings out the best in them, as actors and as characters. 

Based loosely on the life of porn star John Holmes, Boogie Nights, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is a tragic but bold film about finding ones identity in an industry so littered with similarity, where everyone is looking for redemption amidst the unforgiving 70s.

9/10