Drugstore Cowboy

365 Films

Entry #58

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Directed by Gus Van Sant

In trying to figure out the best point of entry into the varied and beguiling filmography of Gus Van Sant, I initially thought the place to start would be the film that introduced me to him.  That film is decidedly not Drugstore Cowboy, but rather his Oscar-winning mainstream success, Good Will Hunting.  That being said, Good Will Hunting doesn’t really represent the enormous gifts that Mr. Van Sant often utilizes at his disposal.  Plus I was really in the mood to watch Drugstore Cowboy last night.  I first encountered Drugstore Cowboy in a high school class that had something to do with acting and writing.  I really wish I could remember what the class was about but we wrote and performed scenes, acted in previously published scripted scenes, and watched the occasional film.  For a bit of high school Ethan Gus Van Sant interconnected trivia, one of my assignments was to perform a scene from Good Will Hunting with a scene partner.  If anybody reading this knows Gus Van Sant, please inform of this so that he and I may become “pals.”  Drugstore Cowboy immediately struck a chord with me because it presents a potentially hectoring and salacious subject matter with the utmost matter of factness.  Bob, Diane, Rick, and Nadine aren’t horrible monsters fiendishly kidnapping young innocents to score another fix for their deadly addiction.  Van Sant presents the primary affliction of their lives to be boredom and hopelessness while drug abuse and petty crime are the salvation rather than the root of their troubles.  Perhaps this is what keyed me into Van Sant’s wavelength before I really knew what he was about as a filmmaker.  He is not the director who stamps his capital T themes on your forehead with every shot; he is an observer and much more interested in the lyrically mundane reality of every day life.  In re-watching Drugstore Cowboy again I was very impressed with the way Van Sant presents not only the de-saturated desolation of a rudderless existence, but also the moments of bliss that are birthed from that.  The particulars of this story involve drugs but as Matt Dillon’s Bob points out late in the film, it could really be anything just as long as it gets you high.  A quick word about Matt Dillon in this role this has got to be the best performance the guy has ever committed to film.  The way he maneuvers from pretending to be the leader of an international drug ring to sounding like a frightened child babbling on about curses and hexes is truly heartbreaking.  The fact that he can do all this within the breath of one scene is what makes the performance a stand out.  He never resorts to the clichéd tics of drug addiction and he never falls into the trap of making clean Bob the ultimately superior version of addict Bob. A friend of mine said it best when describing what he admired about the film; “Drugstore Cowboy understands something about drugs that no other film claiming to be about the subject does: you take drugs because it makes you feel good.”  That sentiment sums up the film as a whole, for the characters of Drugstore Cowboy are always going to be stuck with their lives.  They can pretend to be criminals, addicts, and cowboys all they want, but in the end, it’s just another damp and gray day in Portland.