Last Call

This is a quiet little movie that will break your heart, like everything to do with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jeremy Irons plays an older Fitzgerald, tired and desperate and sick. (Not that old, of course; he's only in his 40's.) He's living the expensive yet shabby winding-down existence of a Hollywood Next Best Thing who has turned out to be Just Another Flop. The Golden Boy of the '20s is now sadly tarnished. Worst of all, his usually reliable muses, the women in his life, are no longer delivering inspiration right to his door.(Look for the great Sissy Spacek as she weaves lustrous silk from the flimsiest of spiderwebs.) Fitzgerald's wonderful golden talent is sputtering like a marquee light bulb ready to blink out for good. But he still has something to say – if he can only get it out. Enter Neve Campbell as a sidewalk sparrow, bright-eyed, on the lookout for crumbs, timid yet bold. Will she be able to re-ignite his creativity? If Jeremy Irons is remarkable in this picture, Neve Campbell is a revelation. A breathtaking beauty, she also shows herself to be a superb actress, able to hold her own and more with the silken-voiced Irons. This movie (also known as "Last Call") deserves to be part of every college course on 20th Century American writers.