Prozac Nation |  | Director: Erik Skjoldbjærg
Actors: Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs, Anne Heche, Michelle Williams, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Studio: Miramax Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $4.28
as of 3/19/2010 03:33 EDT details
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Seller: river-city-books
Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 30563
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: DISD31547D
UPC: 786936223934
EAN: 0786936223934
ASIN: B00094ASC2
Theatrical Release Date: 2001
Release Date: July 5, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Award winners Christina Ricci (CURSED, MONSTER) and Jessica Lange (BIG FISH, ROB ROY) star in this emotionally charged true story about a journey into excess! When talented young writer Elizabeth Wurtzel (Ricci) earns a scholarship to Harvard, she sees it as her chance to escape the pressures of her working-class background and concentrate on her true talent. But what starts out so promising leads to self-destructive behavior and paralyzing depression that reflects an entire generation's struggle to navigate the effects of divorce, drugs, sex, and high expectations. Based on the best-selling autobiographical novel, PROZAC NATION also stars Michelle Williams (THE STATION AGENT), Anne Heche (JOHN Q), Jason Biggs (JERSEY GIRL), and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM).
Amazon.com
Fans of Christina Ricci will note that the saucer-eyed actress takes a big leap from deadpan-child and grumpy-ingenue roles with Prozac Nation, an adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel's bestselling book. Ricci puts her all into playing Lizzie, a self-absorbed Ivy League writer wannabe who alienates friends and family with her out-of-control mood swings and other chemical imbalances. Ricci is committed and convincing, but nothing she does ameliorates Lizzie's exasperating personality; spending 90 minutes around this person is an eternity of tantrums. Around to provide audience stand-ins are Jason Biggs, Michelle Williams, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, all of whom disapprove of Lizzie's self-destructive behavior. Jessica Lange, professional as always, is Lizzie's brittle mother. If the movie really did capture the sense of the zeitgeist suggested by its grandiose title, or if it carried some intriguing stylistic urgency that carried us into its depressive labyrinth, perhaps Lizzie's journey would be palatable. But the long delay between Prozac Nation's shooting (in 2001) and its emergence on cable-TV and DVD is all too easy to understand. --Robert Horton
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 71
 Ricci In Ricci Out January 28, 2010
retrowrestling (SGV, California)
I try to catch as many movies of Christina Ricci as I can being a fan of hers. There's a small handful I enjoy and most of the others are just so-so. For me Prozac Nation falls into the so-so category. For starters, aside from the story or performance, Christina seems to be in between her "chubby" state and her latter very thin state. I prefer her fuller-figured frame but the look in this movie is well balanced for her.
For the movie itself, I just couldn't really get into it. It wasn't horrible to watch but after one viewing I had no desire to watch it again anytime in the future. I feel Ricci did what she could for the role but the story is lacking. In addition to the movie, there is an extra feature called 'Anatomy of a Scene'(19:41). You also get Engish and Spanish subtitles as well as spoken language.
 Trite garbage September 15, 2008
Cosmoetica (New York, USA)
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
In the real world of art Elizabeth Wurtzel is the sexy drama queen every guy wants to do, but no guy wants to wake up next to. Her on-screen portrayer, Christina Ricci, is the ugly artsy wannabe girl that desperately wants every and any guy, but no guy will touch her. That's why, in Prozac Nation, the unreleased 2001 film of Wurtzel's 1990s bestseller book of the same name, there are immediate problems. Ok, the problems start before the miscast of Ricci, who has the emotional range of a thimble- is it any wonder that, by far, her finest acting was in the two Addams Family films? First off, she is bizarre looking- with big eyes and a bulging forehead, making her look like the fetal Starchild from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Secondly, she always plays whiney brats. But, thirdly, is the way films try to make it appear any guy would be attracted to her. In one scene in the film her pal Ruby (Michelle Williams) and Liz walk through Harvard, and all the guys' tongues are wagging at Ricci, not the super-cute and sexy Williams. Hello....Reality check time.... This material begged for the Andy Warhol treatment. Here is his version of the film. A five minute shot of a hypodermic needle. A five minute shot of Wurtzel's hairy pudenda. A five minute shot of her sleeping naked and stoned on the bed. She rises, gives the middle finger to the audience. Cue credits. See, less than twenty minutes to distill Wurtzel's whole life. And, oh yeah, Warhol's film would not have cast Ricci. Even Michelle Williams would have been better, and after seeing Ricci's pallid bosom, I'd take anything Williams or any other babe had to offer me cinematically. Ricci is almost the kiss of death for a film, and how she stays working is a mystery. Think of her performances in mediocre to bad films like Monster, Sleepy Hollow, and Woody Allen's Anything Else- also co-starring Jason Biggs, and now picture another actress in her role, and immediately the films could seem better, if not great. She is the female counterpart to banal, wooden, milquetoast actors like Tom Cruise and Leonardo Dicaprio.
 Picked up from the Discount bin April 28, 2008
Eric C. Anderson (San Francisco, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I picked up this movie from a discount bin because it had a picture of Christina Richie on it. She has always intrigued me. I was stunned to find a movie of substance and deep emotional material.
Late the other night, I was tired, but not enough to sleep, so I popped Prozac Nation into my DVD player and watched. I wondered, why didn't I know more about this movie which had such talented actors in it? As the movie progressed I was amazed at the quality in acting, the beautiful cinematography, the flowing direction which neither tried to placate me or reduce the story to idiocy such that I could get it on the first try.
Prozac Nation is exactly the kind of movie I want. It has depth and truth and tells it like it is. It wasn't until near the end that I even realized that this was a movie about depression. When it was over I was transfixed, eager to know more about the writer, pleased that Ms Richie took on such a complicated and misunderstood subject, amazed at the astounding performance of Jessica Lange.
That night I couldn't sleep. My mind was racing analyzing what I had just experienced. I wanted to know more only to find mixed review. Rotten Tomatoes gave it the worst movie of 2005. The lack of interest in the movie sadden me, I needed to know more. Finally after more searching I discovered this site with people who found this movie as amazing as I did. I was not alone in my admiration of a story so well told.
I have such disdain for movies these days, so little substance and nothing of real value. It is rare that a movie can affect me as Prozac Nation did. If you are interested in a movie which does not lower itself to the typical lethargic audience of today and want to provoke your thoughts and emotions then I recommend you see this movie.
Unfortunately, as usual, try reading the book April 14, 2008
Wiseguy 945 (Omaha, NE)
A decent film about a young woman's battle with Mental illness. I would guess though that the book was better. The ending of this seemed rushed. Unfortunatley, the movies seemed choppy, melodramatic, and just kinda blah. Worth watching, kinda interesting for a person that works in the field.
 None of the Virtures of the Book March 7, 2008
Leta
I really liked the book version of Prozac Nation. It is a hard read in places, parts of it seem like the author wrote them on speed, the protagonist is also the antagonist, it drags a bit in places... but it perfectly captures the zietgiest, it is so baldly, terribly honest that it makes you flinch, and by the end, after you have been through ten years of depression, therapy, and bad behavior with Lizzie, you are just relieved that the Prozac worked. That is a huge element that I think most people take away from the book, that while Prozac or SSRIs in general can be a godsend for some people, they have become almost absurdly overprescribed, and not after a decade of treatment, but a 15 minute medical consultation.
The movie leaves all this behind. Yes, Lizzie is hard to watch, but there is no further, deeper explaination. And the writers of the screenplay tried to condense ten years into one, and the story arc really suffers for that. There is no plot-- and while you could make the argument that the book was plotless, the movie version becomes ultraplotless. Rather than the meandering of the book, the movie is oddly stagnant. The worst thing I can say about this movie is that it completely misses the point of the book- the misgivings the author has about psychiatry, even though it has helped her; the misgivings she has about a physically healthy person taking drugs after drugs, even though she needs them to function; the malaise of an entire nation of people (NOT just the author) that seems to have become a sign of the times. In the end, all the awareness of the author's world has been stripped away by the filmmakers, and left an already selfish and self-destructive characterization into an even more self absorbed character. The movie version of Lizzie is almost nothing at all.
On the plus side of this movie, the acting is strong. Way too strong for such a pitiful script, and the actors seem to know it. Jessica Lange, in particular, acts like she's in a different movie altogether. Only Christina Ricci seems to really inhabit this movie, and she is compelling, the only unequivocally good thing about this film.
This movie got shelved for years because it isn't very good, and moreover, it isn't at all true to a book that was, in it's way, quite groundbreaking. It's just too bad.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 71
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