Not Rated. 85 minutes. At the Denver FilmCenter/Colfax.
The domino that sets off a cascade of falling pieces in “Why Stop Now?” is a Catch-22 moment based on an incident witnessed by Ron Nyswaner, one of the movie’s creators, while working as a volunteer in a detox unit. When Penny Bloom (Melissa Leo), a cocaine addict, is badgered by her son, Eli (Jesse Eisenberg), to enter rehab, she is turned away for lack of insurance and because her urine sample shows no signs of drugs. Surreptitiously advised that she will be admitted if she comes back with “dirty” urine, Penny and Eli do as suggested and go directly to her dealer, Sprinkles (Tracy Morgan), whose supply has run dry.
There is a deadline. Eli, a piano prodigy with his own substance-abuse problems, has an audition for an elite music conservatory that day.
Although none of the far-fetched shenanigans that follow match the story’s initial conceit in real-life absurdity, the movie, written and directed by Nyswaner and Philip Dorling, desperately piles on more and more silliness. It is a daylong detour whose goal is to keep you sufficiently off balance to overlook a fundamental absence of credibility.
That wouldn’t be a problem if “Why Stop Now?” were a farce. But it aspires to be a semi-serious drama that keeps at least one foot on the ground. Eli’s audition is in the auditorium of a high school that is also the headquarters of a group of Revolutionary War re-enactors. Their costume parade and the instant romance that ignites between Eli and Chloe (Sarah Ramos), one of its participants, are gratuitous, implausible distractions.
As “Why Stop Now?” gathers momentum, the increasingly uneasy sensation it produces is not unlike that of being in the back seat of a speeding car whose drunken driver refuses to give up the wheel. At a certain point you grit your teeth, close your eyes and pray that the vehicle doesn’t run off a cliff. It doesn’t quite.
That said, the ride has its exhilarating moments. Leo and Eisenberg, portraying variations of types they’ve played before, lend their characters considerable complexity. Every move of Leo’s unhinged, stubborn Penny is an extravagant overreaction milked for maximum dramatic effect. Leo has no qualms about making her eccentric character a disagreeable loudmouth. But underneath her iron exterior is a soft heart.
Eisenberg’s uber-nerd metamorphoses from a creepy show-off to his mother’s sensible, self-sacrificing caretaker and problem solver. If the role doesn’t quite add up, Eisenberg strives mightily to make it cohere.
The ensemble acting is dissonant. Morgan’s Sprinkles may carry a gun, but he is a spinoff of his affable comic character on “30 Rock.”
Once “Why Stop Now?” has exhausted its bag of tricks, there is a screeching of brakes as it approaches the edge of the cliff. Having expended all that stamina, the film collapses from exhaustion and settles for an abrupt, feel-good ending that is as perfunctory as it is preposterous.
