Muerte de Richie

The Death of Ritchie tells the true story of the sad death of 17 year old Ritchie Werner in the 1970's. This was a made for TV movie and was a brave even brutally realistic portrayal of the emotional turmoil in families with a drug using teenager.

Having lived with a drug using younger brother and then doing volunteer work in the field of adolescent substance abuse, the twists and turns of this story are sadly all too familiar. Drug treatment protocols and interventions have progressed since the 70's so it was frustrating to see the system not coping enough to get Ritchie the help he needed.

The three lead actors: Ben Gazzara as the father Ben Werner and Eileen Brennan as mother Carol Werner and Robby Benson as Ritchie were superb. Having been a frequent witness to the many and varied desperate attempts that parents make to get their child off drugs, I think that Gazzara and Brennan did a fabulous job in portraying the massive roller coaster ride and the sheer desperation that parents feel in these situations.

Robby Benson had already played a string of quite emotionally intense roles as a teenager (Jory, Jeremy, Death Be Not Proud and his most famous being Ode to Billy Joe) but his performance as Ritchie was worthy of an Oscar nomination had this been a big screen movie as he portrays all of the powerful and complex conflicted emotions at play with a boy stuck where he ended up. Addicts often cycle between manic good behavior patches where they try and be clean and then they relapse and crash. In one of those clean positive phases, Ritchie sells raffle tickets to almost everyone he meets in a mall parking lot. Benson excellently portrays the gangly awkwardness of that age and the energy that only really excited and focused teenage boys can put out. Benson played a ton of roles in the '70's where girls easily fell for his doe eyed sensitive charm so it took some acting for a dreamboat kid to play someone who struggled to talk to girls.

Robby Benson by then was a big teen idol courtesy of dazzling eyes, model quality looks and not inconsiderable athleticism (that was on display in a string of movies after Ritchie) but he never could break through with lead roles in big movies because he seemed to have been pigeonholed as just a heartthrob. His performance in Ritchie was akin to Leonardo deCaprio's breakout role in What's Eating Gilbert Grape from which he springboarded to a string of A list roles.