Hollywood can’t stop making movies about addiction and drugs, and that’s exhausting

Johnny Oleksinski

films

by Johnny Oleksinski

Hollywood can’t stop huffing and puffing.

And I don’t mean celebrities’ annoying political puffery during awards season speeches.

Movies have recently become full of drugs and booze.

At the Sundance Film Festival in January, I watched depressing movie after depressing movie about dealers, addicts, good trips, bad trips, pills, marijuana, meth, coke, Rohypnol, injectable steroids, and more as if I were browsing a Tijuana pharmacy.

Drugs have landed in comedies, dramas, horror and biopics. If there was a kids movie about a crazy talking duck, no one would blink an eye.

By the end of the week, I had overdosed on the substance.

This critic returned to his home in New York in critical condition. Before my bleary eyes, the Sundance Film Festival was transformed into a material film festival.

Is widespread drug use an issue of great concern in America? clearly.

But it’s pretty clear that a kilo of substandard, predictable movies about drugs and psychedelics won’t bring reluctant audiences back to struggling movie theaters.

Some movies were good, some were terrible.

But when inhaled en masse, it’s not a good sight; Even though.

You can dismiss this downward trend, if you like, as just a one-time blip in a notoriously steep mountainous pool of indie music fans.

And maybe it was.

Yet the Park City, Utah event, founded by Robert Redford 40 years ago, still carries enormous weight in the world of cinema and offers an often accurate glimpse of what’s on the minds of American filmmakers now — and what will make it to local theaters. And on broadcast this year.

Some years, it’s an obsession with ripped-from-the-headline dramas and shocking documentaries like “Three Identical Strangers” and the horrific Michael Jackson-featuring “Leaving Neverland.”

Other releases gravitated towards intimate fare such as “CODA” or “Little Miss Sunshine”.

Classic horror films “Blair Witch Project,” “The Babadook” and “Get Out” also premiered there.

However, in 2023, many of the big successes were of the bong persuasion type.

Early on, I watched David Schwimmer’s dark comedy “The Little Death.”

In the first half, the Friends actor plays Martin, a frustrated TV writer and pill addict.

In the second half, Dominic Fike and Talia Ryder enter as AJ and Carla’s friends – addicts And Dealers – Agents.

The failure of the drug smuggling operation sets the story in motion.

The lineup of these films was far from sober.

Another addiction story that took us into a difficult situation: Saoirse Ronan, who plays an angry alcoholic in London, whose life falls apart and is then forced to undergo torturous withdrawal on a Scottish island in “The Outrun.”

Even the imagination of young people wanted to get in on the action.

In a twisty romance called “My Old Ass,” an 18-year-old stumbles upon mushrooms in the Canadian woods, hallucinates and then comes face-to-face with her 39-year-old self, played by Aubrey Plaza.

At this point, I was praying for the next Napoleon Dynamite to come along to revive me.

No such luck.

On the final day came actor-director Chiwetel Ejiofor’s “Rob Peace,” the tragic true story of an underprivileged black New Jersey teen who makes it to Yale, but is later forced to sell marijuana to pay his father’s court fees.

He was eventually killed by a rival drug lord.

Obviously, the Garden State is not famous for its daffodils.

Because within hours, I watched actor River Gallo as a fictional bisexual Jersey prostitute and methamphetamine dealer in the cheesy film “Ponyboi.”

First, John has a heart attack and dies during sex after inhaling some bad Tina (meth). In the back room of the sink.

Watching so many films that focused so heavily on drugs was of course very bleak.

Most viewers won’t be able to bear it.

But behind the gloomy mood was an angry feeling of “This again?” Plots no longer seem so brave and risky as lazy.

Not only do drugs provide a quick recovery, they offer filmmakers an easy recipe for follow-up films.

Addicts create uninhibited heroes with big personalities who come packed with a relatable battle to fight.

Dealing takes the characters on tense door-to-door trips across major cities, meeting eccentric colleagues in the dead of night.

And there’s always at least one big scene of the lead actor vomiting, crying, and pumping his fists all the way to the Oscar campaign.

I think simple-mindedness and a lack of creativity better explain the spread of these films than a group-minded desire to address a noteworthy issue head-on.

After all, when does the United States not have a plethora of problems?

Right now, there’s a migrant crisis, an obesity epidemic, skyrocketing grocery bills, and diplomatic engagement in foreign wars.

I haven’t seen seven movies about any of these topics.

Honestly, I hope I never have to.

joleksinski@nypost.com