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If you’re among those who recall the 1980s as a decade of wretched excess, you’ll find validation in Less than Zero, the melancholy but trenchant 1987 screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s bestselling novel. Ellis chronicled the unsavory, even nihilistic antics of several Beverly Hills youths, children of privilege who become morally and spiritually bankrupt as a result of their dissolute lifestyles. In the film adaptation Andrew McCarthy portrays the author’s protagonist, Clay, who returns home for Christmas vacation following a semester at an eastern college. No longer dependent on the meaningless thrills provided by aimless sex and reckless drug use, he touts sobriety to ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) but fails to convince his best friend, Julian (Robert Downey Jr.), a hopelessly addicted loser who eventually plunges into an abyss of degradation. Director Marek Kanievska (Where the Money Is) takes his viewers on a guided tour of L.A.’s seamy subculture, circa 1985; brainless bimbos and predatory pushers, resplendent in their Rodeo Drive fashions, frequent decadent nightclubs and attend drug-sodden orgies in luxury condos and palatial homes. It’s a harrowing and unforgettable journey, and one that now seems sadly prophetic as well, given how closely Downey’s real-life behavior, in the years since this film was first released, has invited comparisons to his character’s.

All Movie Guide

This drama about affluent Los Angeles teens is taken from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Clay (Andrew McCarthy) is a college freshman who returns home during Christmas break. Clay's old flame Blair (Jamie Gertz) is now more interested in her new beau Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), the fun-loving party boy with a penchant for drugs. While Clay tries to rekindle a thing with Blair, Julian becomes addicted to cocaine and starts freebasing. Julian's friends try halfheartedly to intervene, with no success. Soon he is so far in debt to drug dealer Rip (James Spader) that Julian becomes a male prostitute, whoring for enough money for his next fix. Michael Bowen co-stars with Tony Bill and Nicholas Pryor in this trip into the seamy world of darkness in sunny California. Dan Pavlides

Product Details

• UPC: 024543025177
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Language: English, Français
• Subtitles: English, Español
• Time: 1:38:00
• Sales Rank: 8,227

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Less Than Zero & Pick-up Artist (2 Discs)

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