The Lost Weekend, based on the novel by Charles R. Jackson

The Lost Weekend, based on the novel by Charles R. Jackson

The lost Weekend has won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, the Golden Globes for the same crucial categories, another Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay, the prize of the Cannes Festival for best actor and the Grand Prize of the said fiesta of cinema.

All this recognition proves beyond doubt that the acting is resplendent, the story meaningful, poignant, powerful, dramatic, real, including a fight with self and others that is absorbing and worthwhile.

Ray Milland is a virtuoso in the complex, challenging role of a man who is both the antihero and the hero of the screenplay, as he has to fight his urge to drink and eventually an inclination to self-destruct.

This is relevant not just for alcoholics who have been through this nightmare that has them addicted to drink, but it is the story of so many others who have to struggle with a dependency on drugs, more recently fame has been nominated, eating…we can even name narcissism here, an affliction that has the leader of the free world rambling about how smart, all knowing, admired, deal maker, worthy he is.

In the first few scenes, the hero Don Birman is preparing to travel in the country, encouraged, nudged by his brother Wick and his girlfriend Helen St. James, only he appears very preoccupied with something else, not the trip to the country.

He has a bottle hanging out the window and he is obsessed with it, eventually giving up on the weekend outing that was supposed to distract him from his addiction that is destroying his career and life.

This mesmerizing film shows with proficiency the terrible fight, the torment, the violent wrestling that takes place within the hero and his other self, the antihero who only wants to drink and pass out.

The drunk has bottles hidden and he is desperate to get to them, only in his effort to deceive his brother and girlfriend, they are well placed, indeed, so good is the camouflage that the protagonist does not find them, which is also due to the fact that the brain of an addict is malfunctioning.

Desperate to satiate his abominable thirst, Don Birman walks, or maybe better said nearly crawls on the streets, trying to get a drink, finding one, then another shop closed and after he finds them all closed, someone explains that this is a Jewish holiday and the competitors have decided to respect each other’s celebrations and all the liquor stores are shut.

The hero is not a man without talent, stupid and worthless, he is a writer and the novel might be inspired by autobiographical events and challenges, anyway, we have all experienced challenges and the tendency to adopt bad habits that end up creating one or another dependency on what becomes a vicious substance or attitude.

You can read The Power of Habit and learn how we can choose the cue and reward that are paramount in the process of getting rid of a bad practice, or one of the mesmerizing books by Harvard Professor and writer Tal Ben Shahar, who talks about adopting what he calls rituals, routines during which we engage in positive actions, like exercising, counting our blessings, writing about positive events and more.

The happiest people do not have in common wealth, but a strong social support, splendid connections with family and friends, and The Lost Weekend points this out through the extraordinary help that the hero receives from his brother and girlfriend, the latter demonstrating an incredible loyalty.

The addicted man rejects her at times, he is repulsive in addition with his love of the bottle, but she sees through the surface and identifies what could be the real, worthy man, who needs assistance.

Helen St. James tries to find the man she loves, when he has disappeared and there are doubts about his safety, and when she does not find him, she stays on the stairs leading to his apartment, even sleeps there, in spite of the fact that the landlady incriminates him and talks with disgust about his wickedness.

Don Birman demeans himself by nearly begging for drink and passing out only to recover his consciousness in a mental institution, where an employee explains that, if he does get out, as the hero requests, he will return anyway, as all drunks do sooner or later, after a binge drinking and another, inevitable collapse.

This is not the nadir reached by Birman, who is at one time in a restaurant, having a drink, only to find that he has no money to pay for it, but there is couple next to him, busy with each other and the woman’s purse is close to the drunk, who takes it, goes to the restroom, where he seems rather conceited towards the African American working there, in an age when racism and segregation were official policy and law, opens the bag and gets the money.

When he returns, a group of people is waiting for him, the partner of the woman is quick to indicate Don Birman as the man who stole the purse, as the accused try to explain, after confessing, that he did not have any money and he was anyway going to pay it back somehow.

Without discussing the details of the ending, there is a mistrust concerning the evolution of the antihero into a possible role model, the man who has suffered from a terrible affliction, found within him the Bravery, Perseverance, Integrity and Vitality to resist and conquer the tempting song of the Sirens in the bottles.

One way to end the film would be to let the protagonist succumb to his addiction, like the one in Leaving Las Vegas, and this would serve as a lesson…look at what happens if you drink too much.

There is a possibility of Redemption, with love conquers all and Don Birman, with assistance from Helen St. James and his brother, the latter had paid for Don and supported the writer who had not produced anything while a drunk, only one is suspicious about his return to drinking, even if he declares he stops…

The film is on the New York Times’ list of Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made: https://www.listchallenges.com/new-york-times-best-1000-movies-ever-made/checklist/13