Great Film overall

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

"Bright Lights, Big City" bears a simple premise - Michael J. Fox spends his nights in drug-fueled debauchery while his day-to-day slowly implodes - and I have to admit, I was expecting something a bit closer to "Less Than Zero". But this is less about his abuse and more about the consequences: the dismal job performance, the marriage in ruins. There's real sadness here (like seeing him pour out his heart to his secretary (Swoosie Kurtz) - but it's never harrowing. And it's a pretty good vehicle for Fox to play completely against type. More often than not, he's surviving the damage from the night before and he does it well. He makes it easy to root for sobriety.7/10

There are two things that went wrong with this film. First and foremost is that Michael J. Fox is totally miscast for his role. I can understand him wanting to break away from the Alex Keaton character on "Family Ties." But, although he tries, he simply isn't right as a coke-addled, anguished writer. And it knocks the whole film off-kilter. Another problem is that the story doesn't translate easily onto film. There are some compensations- great supporting cast, catchy theme song ("Kiss & Tell" by Bryan Ferry), and excellent use of New York City locations. But they weren't enough to make the film a success, and the disappointing returns at the box office bear this out.

Personally, I was a bit horrified to hear that Michael J. Fox was trying to perform in a dramatic role, without pratfalls.My bad. He did a darn fine job with it.Keifer Sutherland was almost perfect as the hard-partying friend. The rest of the cast, on-screen for much less time, was also fine. Jason Robards in an uncredited stint as the drunken editor from down the hall did his usual excellent job.Some of the other reviewers seem to have missed the point - this is a story about a man hitting the bottom and beginning his bounce back.One of the best movies I've seen that portrays the reality facing young adults in the 80's in the USA. It's probably got a lot to say about the 20-something young professional experience from about 1975 to the present.I'd not have cast Michael J. Fox - but I'd have been wrong. The rest of the amazingly talented cast did remarkably well - the casting director should get an Oscar for this one. When this happens, one can usually lay at least some of the blame on the director as well - I'll start looking for more of Mr. Bridges' work.The book may have been better - most books are. Deal. Watching the movie without having read the book, I catch many of the nuances, and get at least the gist of the story being told. I've never seen a good novel that'd make a decent 2-hour movie, anyway - it'd have to be reworked to come in under 6 hours.

You guys have got to be kidding---this is one of the worst movies ever made, for one simple reason: not only does Michael J. Fox's character not give a crap about anyone but himself, but he is aided along by the fact that every other character in the movie cares ONLY about him! None of them have lives; all of their lives revolve around HIM, and for no reason, since there's nothing interesting about him. A typical example of how outrageous this can be is when he calls the character played by his real-life wife Tracy Pollan on the phone at 3am on a weeknight, and she's not even annoyed that he woke her up. She's all bright & bubbly & "Oh Hi Jamie, what's up? What can I do for you?" Everyone feels overwhelming sympathy for him just because he was (justifiably) fired from his job as a magazine fact checker, for heaven's sake. WHO CARES?? BTW there is another film w/William Hurt called "Accidental Tourist" that has the exact same problem: no one cares about anything except the self-absorbed character, who is boring beyond belief. Avoid these films like the plague!