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Delirious
(NR)

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Les (Steve Buscemi) shows Toby (Michael Pitt) the ropes.
Tom DiCillo's sharply satirical, very moving comedy-drama, which debuted at the 2007 Sundance film festival, casts the indispensable Steve Buscemi as Les, a sullen, angry celebrity paparazzo who always believes that he's one click away from the big time, and Michael Pitt as Toby, the sweet-spirited homeless kid he "hires" as his unpaid assistant. Their unlikely friendship -- a distant comic echo of the Dustin Hoffman-Jon Voigt dynamic in Midnight Cowboy -- forms the movie's lynchpin.

Toby (Pitt) catches the eye of a hot starlet.
As Les helps the beaten-down Toby learn the ropes of the celebrity-stalking game and the ins and outs of life on the E-list, the handsome young guy catches the eye of a self-centered pop singing sensation (Alison Lohman) and a voracious casting agent (Gina Gershon) who both want to not only bed him but also promote him to celebrity. This reversal of fortune unhinges Les in ways that grow surprisingly nasty, vindictive and, finally, verge on scary (if implausible) Taxi Driver territory.

DiCillo (writer-director of Living in Oblivion) certainly knows his way around the perils of chasing fame, setting up a number of dead-on scenes that illustrate the nose-pressed-against-the-window aspect of celebrity hounds and the queasy interrelationships between the famous and their hangers-on. One of the movie's killer scenes, though, has Les riding a temporary high after selling a photo to a tabloid, and taking Toby home to visit his parents who show contempt for their son's "profession" and hostile suspicion about Toby's sexual orientation. Delirious is no world-beater, but it is well-observed, malicious fun and offers Buscemi at close to his snarly, sad sack best.


Starlet K'Harma Leeds (Alison Lohman) knows how to get the photographers' attention.
He's matched by a flat-out revelatory performance from Pitt, whom we now see has been underutilized in films like Murder By Numbers and The Dreamers. Rescue Me's terrific Callie Thorne also gets in a few good licks as Lohman's placating publicist and Elvis Costello turns up playing himself with style and malice.

By Stephen Rebello

Photos: Courtesy PeaceArch Entertainment

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