03.09.08
Drugstore Cowboy
The title of Drugstore Cowboy always makes me think of that 311 song that goes “I know a drugstore cowboy / so afraid of getting bored…” Remember 311? Weren’t they from Omaha or something?
This Gus Van Sant movie is a lot better than that song, though. A young and sexy Bob (Matt Dillon) is a junkie who robs drugstores with his wife Dianne (Kelly Lynch), his friend Rick (James LeGros) and Rick’s girlfriend Nadine (a 19-year-old Heather Graham). At the outset, they are run out of Portland and go on the road, picking up drugs that they shipped to themselves via various bus routes. Pretty ingenious, especially for junkies. Yeah, they are a pretty resourceful lot.
At one of their stops, Nadine really pisses off Bob (she is really dumb, admittedly) so she is left behind as the other 3 go on their next score (I don’t know why I’m using vocabularly like “score”). When they get back, she has OD’d and is lying blue on the floor. For Bob, this is Rock Bottom and he decides to go home and get his life back on track. He can’t convince Dianne to go with him, but he goes anyway. He enters a methadone program. Eventually he meets Dianne again - she is still using - but now she is working for Rick. Bob also makes friends with an old old junkie, Tom the Priest, who is played by William S. Burroughs - so that’s pretty cool, too.
Drugstore Cowboy is really well done and all the leads turn in great performances. I am no expert on junkie culture so I couldn’t tell you how authentic that aspect of things is, but the love story - as much as you can call it that - did have an impact on me. There is something so tragic about Dianne’s character. She loves Bob. She loves drugs. She craves both, but she can only control and demand anything from one of them. At one point early on she is trying to seduce Bob and she says, kissing him in lingerie “You never fuck me and I always have to drive.” I found this very poignant for many reasons - it really sums up that kind of relationship for me. They love each other, but exist in different states of self-sacrifice.
I don’t know, I liked it.