Quitting

Remember when Joan Rivers and daughter Melissa starred as themselves in that made-for-TV debacle about their struggle to cope with Joan's husband's suicide? This film festival award-winning Chinese entry from director Zhang Yang (Shower) goes much further, cuts much deeper, and, not surprisingly, is much better acted. A B-movie idol and acclaimed stage actor before drugs derailed his career in the 1990s, Jia Hongshen is the subject of this harrowing dramatic recreation of Hongshen's descent, and the efforts of his family and friends to save him. And here's the interesting twist: everyone, from Hongshen and his parents, to the inmates at a psychiatric hospital, portray themselves. Especially moving are the scenes between Hongshen and his estranged alcoholic father, whose generation gap is really more of a full-fledged abyss (the father has never heard of the Beatles, with whom Hongshen is obsessed). Early on, Hongshen remarks that making this film "will be a good chance for me to think about my life," but by the time he is released from the hospital, his parents still wonder whether they will be able to trust their son. But the stunning final shot offers reason to hope. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)