Fix (USA: 2007, Tao Ruspoli)

Over the first weekend of the SBIFF I kept hearing in class and from people in line about an awesome movie called Fix. I heard that it was “Raw, real, and very cool.” I went into this film with pretty high hopes and to say I left underwhelmed would be an understatement. For a film that was supposed to be so real, it contained a lot of dialogue and character arcs that I just couldn’t buy.

Fix is a faux documentary , all shot mostly from the view of one person. This person is Milo (Tao Ruspoli). The film is about Milo, a documentary filmmaker, and his partner, Bella’s (Olivia Wilde) efforts to transport Milo’s heroin addict brother Leo (Shawn Andrews) from jail to rehab. This proves a more complicated task than it first appears and turns into a journey through the seediest locations Los Angeles has to offer. From a chop shop on the East side of the city, mansions in the Hollywood hills, to a dark smack house in Watts we are taken on a journey through Leo’s larger than life past. In the beginning of the film Milo wants to help his brother and Bella, a seemingly straight laced young woman just wants to get on with the documentary they are currently working on and forget about Leo. As the film progresses, Bella moves more and more towards wanting to aide Leo in his recovery until all of a sudden she is willing to make drugs deals to raise the money necessary fo him to enter rehab to avoid prison. This change in character is far too quick for me to believe. Not only is she suddenly willing to break the law for this man she does not know, but she is a savvy, fast talking dealer in a matter of hours. This is displayed by several scenes in which some of the dialogue made me cringe.

There were some things I liked about this film however. I liked the overall idea of the story and the decision to shoot the entire film from a first person handheld view was a very interesting choice. Much of the story takes place in a car and it gives us a very unique view of the Los Angeles cityscape. The scenes were shot well, but I was really mostly taken out of the story by the dialogue. I think the writing called too much attention to itself. I thought the end of the story was the most real and believable part of the entire film, an excellent choice by Ruspoli.

After the screening, almost the entire cast and crew came out and did a Q&A. Some, but not nearly enough, of their choices in the film were reconciled with me during this time. They also brought up the fact that most people have a “Leo” in their life. A larger than life character with larger than life problems. They also brought up how difficult it is to help someone that doesn’t need to be helped. This kind of personal interaction helped put the film in perspective for me, but had the filmmakers not been there to explain themselves, the film would have been lost on me.

Tao Ruspoli had a pretty interesting idea for this film and an interesting way to present it. I just think that the importance of the story was lost in shoddy dialogue. With some tightening up Ruspoli could create some impressive films, but this one fell short.