''I'm Losing You'' is a 1998 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Bruce Wagner Bruce Alan Wagner (born March 22, 1954) is an American novelist and screenwriter based in Los Angeles known for his apocalyptic yet ultimately spiritual view of humanity as seen through the lens of the Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood entertainm ...

and adapted from his 1996 novel of the same name. The film stars

Rosanna Arquette Rosanna Lisa Arquette (; born August 10, 1959) is an American actress. She was nominated for an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film ''The Executioner's Song ( ...

Frank Langella Frank A. Langella Jr. (; born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor. He has won four Tony Awards: two for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's '' Frost/Nixon'' and as André in Flori ...

, Andrew McCarthy, and Elizabeth Perkins. ''I'm Losing You'' film premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on September 17, 1998 and received a limited theatrical release in the United States on July 16, 1999. The title of the film refers not only to the loss of life and love, but to a phrase used by most Angelenos while talking on cellular phones.

Plot

The film centers on the wealthy, dysfunctional Krohn family of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. On the verge of his 60th birthday, patriarch and TV producer Perry Krohn is diagnosed with inoperable cancer and is told he has only months left to live. He delays telling his thirtysomething children, has-been actor Bertie and adopted daughter Rachel. Bertie, who is promoting a scheme to

short-sell In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of a more conventional "long" position, where the investor will profit if the value of the ...

life insurance policies to

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

patients, is a devoted single parent to his daughter Tiffany, but constantly worries about the erratic behavior of Lidia, his drug-addicted ex-wife. Rachel, who works at an auction house, becomes drawn into

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

as a means of coping with a spirituality crisis. She also makes an alarming discovery about her biological parents. At a party, Bertie meets HIV-positive activist Aubrey, with whom he becomes entangled in a reckless sexual relationship. Perry also embarks on an affair, one he believes to be his last, with Mona Deware, an English actress appearing in his wildly successful ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

''–like series, "Blue Matrix."

Cast

Reception

Review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gives the film a 40% approval rating based on five reviews, with an

average rating In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 4.85/10. Critics noted the film's "certain visual elegance and tonal control", but said its grim subject matter would only be appealing to a specialized audience.

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' noted that the film pares down much of the material from the novel and said it doesn't "quite hang together", but "it does capture the black humor and mournful angst at the heart of the material". She concluded, "Wagner successfully echoes his book's bleak resonance, but his straightforward ability with a camera is no match for what he can do on the page. He does give the film a cool, calculated look that preserves its discreet mournfulness and saves it from emotional overkill."

Nathan Rabin Nathan Rabin (; born April 24, 1976) is an American film and music critic. Rabin was the first head writer for ''The A.V. Club'', a position he held until he left the ''Onion'' organization in 2013.

of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' wrote, "Joyless, morbid, and frequently over-written (at one point Arquette informs an acquaintance that she 'was into Coleridge and the Cabala before either were trendy'), ''I'm Losing You'' seems intent on rubbing its viewers' faces in the pain and degradation of contemporary life. Equal parts bleak

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

, pitch-black comedy, and morose meditation on the nature of death, ''I'm Losing You'' is as compelling as it is repugnant and sorrowful." Producer Pamela Koffler was awarded with the Producers Award at the 15th Independent Spirit Awards for her work on the film.

References

External links

* * *{{AllMovie title, title=I'm Losing You 1998 films 1998 directorial debut films 1998 drama films 1998 independent films American drama films Films set in Los Angeles Films based on American novels HIV/AIDS in American films Films about Hollywood, Los Angeles Adultery in films Films about cancer Films about actors Films about death Films about dysfunctional families Films produced by Christine Vachon Killer Films films Lionsgate films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films