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DELIRIOUS
Written & Directed by: Tom DiCillo.
Produced by: Robert Salerno.
Director of Photography: Frank G. DeMarco.
Edited by: Paul Zucker.
Music by: Anton Sanko.
Released by: Peace Arch Entertainment.
Country of Origin: USA. 107 min. Not Rated.
With: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon, Kevin Corrigan & Callie Thorne.

Toby Grace, (Michael Pitt), homeless and shoeless (someone stole his sneakers while he was sleeping in the subway), stumbles upon a cluster of paparazzi outside of a club waiting for the appearance of blonde superstar K’Harma Leeds (Alison Lohman). He offers to go on a coffee run for the photographers, showing a willingness to work that will serve him well in the course of director Tom DiCillo satire. But bafflingly, plucky Toby follows the irascible Les (Steve Buscemi) home, pleading for a place to stay. (Les’s ongoing refrain is “What the f---?”)

Whether to exploit the young man or to have a sycophant of his own, Les (Steve Buscemi) gives the 20-year-old a room, a closet really, inside his dingy, walk-up apartment. In return, Toby becomes the hand-to-mouth photographer’s otherwise unpaid assistant.

Les, who will live down to his name as the film moves on, teaches the kid the ropes: keep a martini glass handy to crash a party and grab as much swag as you can. Although Toby’s earnest optimism dumbfounds Les, even he begrudgingly admits Toby comes in handy. At a Soap Stars Against STD benefit (much of the humor is in this vein), a slightly drunk casting director (hilariously played by steely-eyed Gina Gershon) takes a clear liking to the young man’s bone structure and promises to throw some auditions his way.

Doors continue to open for Toby – but not always for Les – when he mistakenly becomes part of the after-party entourage of K’Harma, the biggest pop star of the day and the film’s biggest satiric target, played by Alison Lohman as a kind, wide-eyed simpleton. A clip from her latest music video has her cavorting in a boxing ring wearing nothing but a latex bikini. The obvious allusion to Britney Spears is already apparent without an uninspired reference to one of K’Harma’s upcoming projects, The Life of Britney Spears, the Musical, to be written by Elvis Costello, no less.

DiCillo, director of gems like The Real Blonde, Living in Oblivion, and Johnny Suede takes his familiar satiric theme – earnest fools get duped by industry sleazebags, though no one is ever as earnest or sleazy as they seem – and turns it into a film that critics have lauded more than any of his previous flicks. There’s a latent sweetness here that pulls you into DiCillo’s wit more than his other films. But that might just be Michael Pitt’s cherubic, winningly sincere face.

As others have pointed out, this could have been a cursory glance at the maligned inanity of pop culture, tabloid journalism, and ambition. But DiCillo has always been too optimistic about humanity to let it rest there. No one is as simple or indefensible as they look. Even K’Harma, who seems fortunate to have found her one and only calling as a pop star, has emotional depth, though her character could have been much darker, and more an object of ridicule. Zachary Jones
August 20, 2007