DOWN TO THE BONE
unrated, 105 minutes

Addiction dramas always pose a bit of a problem because they’re less about character than biochemistry. That’s why they usually follow a glamorous type whose addiction serves as a poor man’s Romanticism, or set up the paraphernalia and hallucinations for our delectation like a liquor ad.

“Down to the Bone” takes as its protagonist a checkout clerk and mother of two who lives in upstate New York. The film is resolutely plain and admirably matter-of-fact. But its documentary style resists elaboration and nuance even when they might deepen the unadorned realism.

Quite a lot happens in the film, without much fuss: Irene (Vera Farmiga) checks into rehab, loses her job, and has a run-in with the police, all while caring for the kids and wrangling a dumb husband. Ms. Farmiga, the center and spirit of the movie, plays this working-class role close to the vest, watching and absorbing with dull habit, betraying little. It’s a bold reserve, especially since Ms. Farmiga looks a little like a star snapped in an airport – haggard but with pellucid blue eyes and a model’s cheekbones that confront us with beauty.

“Down to the Bone” sticks with Irene’s perspective throughout, which, along with ragged editing and some foreshortened scenes, might leave viewers in the lurch. The film’s events don’t feel like they’re happening for our sake: After all, Irene has lived with this addiction since long before we first see her, ducking into the bathroom for a snort after dressing her kids for Halloween. Her affair with a rehab attendant (Hugh Dillon), who does some backsliding of his own, is just another bad choice that happens to take place now. That’s of a piece with this film’s documentary approach, and the whole thing may ultimately be too take-it-or-leave-it to engage most audiences.

– Nicolas Rapold

39 POUNDS OF LOVE
unrated, 74 minutes

“39 Pounds of Love” is about Ami Ankilewitz, a 33-year-old who weighs 39 pounds thanks to a muscular disorder. Everything about this documentary, from its cloying title to its final credits, is mawkish, sentimental, and insincere.

Mr. Ankilewitz was born in Texas, and a doctor told his mother he wouldn’t live past age 6. Today, Mr. Ankilewitz lives in Tel Aviv, long past his expiration date. Little more than a torso and head, with the ability to move one finger, he’s totally dependent on his caretaker, Christina, a hot Romanian who bathes him, shaves him, takes him out to parties, and gets him drunk.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Ankilewitz is in love with Christina, but she thinks of him as just a friend. Humiliated, he throws her out of his house and, with film crew in tow, decides to go on a cross-country tour of America to confront Albert Cordova, the doctor who made his initial diagnosis.

What a mess. Lost in a phony, inspirational haze, Mr. Ankilewitz is constantly called upon to dispense words of wisdom about life that sound like platitudes he cribbed from a Hallmark card. The movie is broken up with an aggressively cute, computer-animated film Mr. Ankilewitz made about two birds who are in love and are supposed to represent himself and Christina. Not content to leave it alone, director Dani Menkin inserts the cartoon birds into real documentary footage, which will cause stomach pain for many an audience member. And, when Mr. Ankilewitz finally meets Dr. Cordova, their conversation has all the spontaneity of a U.N. treaty ratification session, with both of them exchanging obviously rehearsed platitudes about the wonderment of human life.

-Grady Hendrix

MY BIG FAT INDEPENDENT MOVIE
R, 80 minutes

Spouting off a list of titles from the last 15 years and throwing in a couple of fart jokes isn’t clever. It’s monotonous. And stupid. And bizarre, considering the man who put ‘My Big Fat Independent Movie’ together should have known better.

Chris Gore founded Film Threat magazine in 1985. By moving it exclusively to the internet in 1997, he elevated it to one of the best sites on independent film. So it comes as a great disappointment that his production of “My Big Fat Independent Movie” (playing a week-long engagement at Two Boots) has made a mess of the subject most dear to his heart.

The story, which combines plot elements from “Reservoir Dogs,” “Pi,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Amelie,” and “Timecode” among others, concerns a pair of foul-mouthed hit men (a la “Pulp Fiction”) who set out on a road trip to Las Vegas with a hipster right out of “Swingers” and a bored cashier who spends her downtime sleeping with young men (and who incidentally wears a name tag that reads “The Good Girl”). Their aim: to pull off a self-proclaimed ‘Botched Robbery.’

Along the way, they cross paths with a jogger from “Run Lola Run,” an animated philosopher out of “Waking Life,” and a “Memento”-like amnesiac who thinks Kenny G killed his spouse. Ultimately, the only difference between watching the film and reading a list of the movies it references is the 80-minute running time.

-Edward Goldberger