Blu-Ray Review: Well-Acted ‘Sympathy For Delicious’ Feels Too One-Note

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CHICAGO – An intriguing, highly unusual premise is brought to life by fine performances in “Sympathy for Delicious,” but the film’s aim to inspire is undercut by the shallowness of its one-note characters. Scene after scene veers between a genuinely absorbing morality play and a feature-length “Touched by an Angel” episode riddled with f-bombs.

I suspect that the picture was awarded a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in part because of its offscreen story regarding the 20-year friendship between first-time director Mark Ruffalo and screenwriter/star Christopher Thornton. Their arduous journey toward bringing this indie production to the screen was clearly a labor of love, and the film is an impressive achievement on numerous levels. It just has the tremendous misfortune of centering on one of the most insufferable protagonists in recent memory.

Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0

Thornton is a fine actor and proves here that he’s more than capable of anchoring a feature film. It’s a shame that he gave himself a role as irritating as “Delicious” Dean O’Dwyer, a wheelchair-bound DJ who lives out of his car and pities himself with a nearly religious zeal. Yes, Dean has a great deal to complain about. But his penchant for playing the victim puts him at odds with everyone, including the audience. He’s so morose that even his god-given powers for healing the sick fail to cheer him up. Nope, that’s not a misprint. One day, Dean suddenly discovers that he has the ability to instantly cure everyone that he touches…with the exception of himself. This mind-boggling miracle is of great interest to Father Joe (Ruffalo), who finds that he can aid the homeless men and women of his poverty-stricken community by using Dean’s abilities to gain donations for his church. Since Ruffalo is one of the most naturally appealing actors in modern American cinema, he makes Joe more sympathetic than he may have seemed in the hands of another performer. The priest’s intentions truly seem to be pure, even though he is using Dean’s powers for the benefits of his flock. Yet Dean’s selfishness causes him to abandon humanitarianism in favor of an altogether different lifestyle. This is where “Sympathy” ventures into its most provocative and problematic material.

Christopher Thornton stars in Mark Ruffalo’s Sympathy for Delicious.
Photo credit: Maya Entertainment

When a rock band promises Dean stardom and a steady paycheck in exchange for his onstage healing abilities, the penniless record scratcher agrees. Though Dean claims that music is his true love, the film barely attempts to explore this passion. Thornton nails the volcanic rage of his character, but he fails to get the audience to believe that there’s a passionate bone to be found in Dean’s body. It comes as a relief when fellow rocker Ariel (brilliantly played by Juliette Lewis) cuts him down to size, and it must be said that Dean is momentarily aided by the presence of lead singer “The Stain” (Orlando Bloom), who manages to be even more obnoxiously self-centered than the “Delicious” DJ is. The film’s climax is an intense confrontation in which Dean unloads on Father Joe for prostituting his gift. On one level, this scene can be admired simply because it allows its two actors to fire on all cylinders. Yet the scene is enraging for the wrong reasons, since it was ultimately Dean’s selfishness that caused him to become such a loathsome prostitute. He’s such a sour character that the film’s last-minute stabs at redemption feel entirely artificial and unearned. Ruffalo and Thornton’s film is paved with good intentions, but it never once succeeds in garnering sympathy for “Delicious.”

Sympathy for Delicious was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on August 23, 2011. Photo credit: Maya Entertainment

“Sympathy for Delicious” is presented in pristine 1080p High Definition (with a 1.77:1 aspect ratio), and includes English captions that are in all caps, which makes the characters sound as if they are constantly shouting at each other (though that wouldn’t be far from the truth). In a 10-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, Thornton reveals that the only biographical material in the film are his character’s confinement to a wheelchair and his desperate trip to a healing service. He and Ruffalo note that the film proved to be a tough sell because of its first-time director and unknown lead (Thornton is practically hidden on the disc’s cover art). The personal relationship behind the professional collaboration between Thornton and Ruffalo is what’s most diverting about these interviews, and there’s a brief shot of the two actors sharing the stage in a Stella Adler production of “Waiting for Godot.”

Bloom joins the writer and director for the audio commentary and does a fine job of guiding the conversation whenever Thornton and Ruffalo threaten to trail off. The filmmakers reminisce about their experience of shooting on location in Skid Row and discuss the difficulties of choreographing the film’s concert set-piece mixing rock music with faith healing. Thornton says that the overpowering adrenaline he felt at the healing services reminded him of a rock concert and ultimately inspired the second half of his script. Ruffalo admits that directing the film felt like “hell on earth,” primarily because the tight 22-day shooting schedule didn’t allow for a great many retakes (the film’s score was recorded over a weekend). A priest was on the set as a religious consultant for the film’s spiritual sections, and Ruffalo mentions that he wanted to capture the dilemma of “charity in capitalism” when everything threatens to be commoditized. One particularly memorable insight shared by Ruffalo is the fact that Lewis had initially turned her role down because she felt it hit too close to home, and she went on to improvise many of her best lines in the film. There are various intriguing deleted scenes hinted at in the commentary that Ruffalo promises to include on the home video release. Suppose we’ll have to wait for the director’s cut.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]