Dopamine Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)October 28th, 2003
DOPAMINE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Mark Decena's DOPAMINE is a good movie but not precisely for the reasons you first expect. When we meet Rand (John Livingston), Winston (Bruno Campos) and Johnson (Reuben Grundy), they are three hyperguys. Caffineheads, they've been working day and night for three years on their software project in their three person company. They're so jumpy that it's hard to see how they can write code without major mistakes. And sometimes they do, as we see when their first demo to live subjects freezes. The story appears to be an insightful and funny look into the trials and tribulations of extreme programming. The movie is that, but it is much more.
What the story turns out to be most interested in are relationships, of which the story provides several but none better or more genuine than that between Rand and Sarah (Sabrina Lloyd). She teaches in the preschool where the guys' product is to undergo its first user test. Going by the name of Koy Koy, the lads' pride and joy is a virtual bird that they've created on their computers. Koy Koy is very cute and sensitive, just like Rand, its main creator and a guy who looks like a young Kevin Spacey. A man whose mother suffers from a bad case of Alzheimer's, Rand throws himself into his work almost as a form of therapy. Koy Koy is clearly there to address some of his emotional needs. He's also quite protective of Koy Koy and isn't the least bit happy when the company's financial backers force the product testing on them.
Sarah, on the other hand, isn't a big believer in fake animals. She keeps asking why a live rabbit wouldn't be better. The script does a good job of skewering everyone. The school's New Age philosophy comes under question, for example, when one of Sarah's fellow teachers is heard instructing her five-year-olds, "Let's draw a picture of how we could get off the conflict escalator." This pop quiz drawing came thanks to a little girl who wanted to punch her classmate.
Rand is a big fan of pharmacological explanations of human behavior. Dopamine, he explains to Sarah, is drug that the "body produces naturally during courtship." His initial attraction to her is olfactory, specifically, the smell of her hair when she happens to bend in front of his face. His scent glands drive him into ecstasy.
The chemistry between Rand and Sarah is touching and completely real. The two of them have their own special needs, and it looks for a while as if their troubles will keep them apart.
In the last act, the story takes a surprising and rewarding turn. DOPAMINE has several parallel storylines, and all of them work. My only regret was that the movie was shot in digital video, which sucked some of the life out of it.
"Feelings are a limited resource, and you have to use them sparingly," Winston advises Rand towards the end. The irony is that Winston, the macho man of the group, is an extrovert who blabs his feelings to everyone who'll listen and even to those who won't. Using his tough guy persona, he acts like he never shows emotions, which actually he does all of the time. It is Rand who has been bottling up his, but the story is about his coming out. Rand finally gets in touch with his feelings and isn't ashamed to express them anymore.
DOPAMINE runs a fast 1:19. The film is rated R for "language, sexuality and brief drug use" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film is playing in limited release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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