Ruben Guthrie (2015)

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This film barely brushes over the reality of alcoholism. Clearly the writer/director hasn't bothered to do any research on the disorder. So don't make a film about it? There are many issues with this film, but I'll address the main one which bothered me, which is the fact that withdrawal symptoms are not addressed. This is baffling, because physical dependence and withdrawal is one of the most difficult aspects of giving up alcohol. In fact, alcohol is the most dangerous substance to withdraw from and leads to sweats, shaking, tremors, fevers, dangerously high blood pressure, racing heart, among other things, and in extreme cases, life-threatening seizures, hallucinations, gastric bleeding, and death (DTs). Alcohol detox is usually done under medical supervision because it's dangerous to come off it otherwise. In fact, 33% of alcoholics who attempt to come off alcohol cold turkey without medical supervision die. That's a pretty high number. In this film, on day 1 of no alcohol, the protagonist is totally fine, and able to attend a meeting with no visible physical signs of withdrawal. This simply wouldn't happen. He would wake up shaking and barely be able to walk or get out of bed, because his neurochemistry would be highly overactive having compensated for prolonged periods of alcohol, with no alcohol present anymore to counteract it. Granted, everyone has different experiences with withdrawal in terms of variations in symptoms, but no one would get off this easy if they were physically addicted to alcohol. Then all of a sudden, it's 30 days later and he mentions insomnia as a withdrawal symptom, but withdrawal symptoms would be well and truly resolved by then (it generally takes 5-10 days for detox). Also, with physical dependence of alcohol, each withdrawal will be worse and more severe than the last (known as kindling). In Guthrie's attempt number two of giving up alcohol, he's on a plane to Prague. And again, he's totally fine. Yeah, this would not happen. He'd quite possibly be convulsing on the floor of his apartment by then. Overall, this is a highly glossed over, and inaccurate depiction of alcoholism, and doesn't do justice to the seriousness and difficulties of the disease. It's pretty much a romantic comedy mainly concerned with Guthrie's love life that deals with alcoholism on the side. If you want to watch a movie that accurately depicts the reality of alcoholism, watch Leaving Las Vegas. Frankly, sick of these movies perpetuating the misconception that alcoholism is a walk in the park, and treat it as a joke, when it couldn't be further from the truth. People need to understand the seriousness of withdrawal where actual physical dependence of alcohol has occurred. If you or anyone you know decide to come off alcohol after a long period of heavy drinking, please seek medical help if you start having withdrawal symptoms, because they can kill you. No, giving up alcohol is not a wall in the park or a plane trip to Prague, and it is irresponsible of this movie to depict it as such.

Wasn't expecting it but this was a very good movie. Engaging throughout. Patrick Brammall can act. Loved Abbey Lee's 'second scene.' Will leave it at that.Oh, evidently, need 10 lines to post. But I don't feel like writing 10 lines. Don't read on.Life is good for ad man Ruben Guthrie - he leads a party boy lifestyle, has a model fiancée and lives in a house on the water. He's at the top of his game, until some drunken skylarking lands Ruben at the bottom of his infinity pool, lucky to be alive. His mum hits the panic button, and then his fiancée leaves him, but not before issuing him one final challenge: If Ruben can do one year without a drink, she'll give him another chance... RUBEN GUTHRIE is the story of one man not only battling the bottle, but the city that won't let him put it down.

"Ruben Guthrie" is a strange film about alcoholism...strange because I really have no idea what it's trying to say. Still, despite this and a very strange ending, the acting is quite nice.The film begins with Ruben behaving like a drunk frat-boy--which is sad since he's supposed to be an adult. After his latest crazy binge, his live-in girlfriend has had enough and she leaves--vowing only to return IF he manages to stay sober for the next year. Ruben's commitment to sobriety at first is extremely shallow and he doesn't think he has a problem. But, over time and after the alcohol leaves his system, he slowly comes to see that he IS an alcoholic and becomes actively involved with Alcoholics Anonymous.Patrick Brammall is very good as Ruben and much of the script seemed very well done and seemed to have a lot of insights into not just alcoholism but how the families and friends of addicts often do a lot to try to keep the person actively drinking and screwing up their lives. But the film also seems to have lost a sense of direction and the ending is anti-climactic to say the very least.

Boring, not funny, one dimensional characters. Robyn Nevin and Aaron Bertram must be given some credit for doing the best they could with such a poor script. Jack Thomson plays Jack Thomson. Abbey Lee is a model not an actress, too obvious in this film. Not sure if viewer was suppose to feel this way: But I wanted to throw 'Chet' (Brenton Thwaites) from the office balcony, character should have been hanging at a skate park, not working in a large Advertising Company. Alex Dimitriades played Alex Dimitriades. Not much more I could say but 'disappointed' in portrayal of a topic that many have had to deal with i.e.: alcoholics.