Written and directed by Aaron Fisher
Starring Rosie Perez, Eric Roberts and Aaron Fisher
Running time: 1 hour and 30 minutes

by Anthony Glassman

Take one part rom-com, subtract the rom, add in some deadpan dark comedy and liberally spice with Rosie Perez, who has now officially become the greatest human being to appear on the screen, and what do you get?

Inside the Rain, written, directed by and starring Aaron Fisher, who seems to be a dark-haired Michael Rapaport without the Boston accent or the hip-hop pretensions.

Ben (Fisher) has it all: bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, OCD and enough medications to sink a battleship, which is why he has just transferred colleges. Things seem to be going well at the new college, where he has decided to live a “recklessly extravagant” life, just like Odysseus. Sadly, that seems to involve overdosing on his medicine.

When the girl he hooked up with at a party stops by to check on him afterwards, she mistakes his lining up his pills to be put in his organizer for another overdose attempt and calls 911, leading the school administration to give him the boot.

He doesn’t want to leave, however, so he decides that, being a film major, he’s going to create a cinematic version of the events as they occurred, so that he can prove he didn’t try to off himself the second time, violating the school’s “second-strike” rule. Apparently, the school doesn’t have a baseball team.

Eric Roberts plays Monty Pennington, a down-on-his-luck film producer who decides to help Ben, while Ellen Toland plays model/sushi table/video sex goddess Emma, who Ben thinks is the perfect casting for his one-night-stand in his exculpatory film, as well as the perfect choice to be his girlfriend.

At this point, you are probably asking yourself, “Self, why the hell was he talking about Rosie Perez in the opening paragraph and hasn’t mentioned her since?” To which I reply, “I was saving the best for almost last.” Ben’s parents are played well; Catherine Curtin and Paul Schulze exemplify two people at their wits’ end, who love their son but would probably not be averse to shoving him off a cliff at times. However, as his parents, they have to behave.

His psychiatrist, Dr. Holloway (Perez), does not. She calls him on his shit like his name was Mookie, verbally smacking him around in the most professional and friendly way possible. She also has one of the best exchanges in the film, possibly of the year. Ben is describing going to a strip club—a lap dance is $20 per song, half an hour in the private room is $320, and half an hour in the really private room is $1,000.

“What happens if you just want to jack off?” Dr. Holloway asks in her delicious voice.

“Well, you save $1,000,” Ben replies.

Somehow, there is a very profound lesson in this.

In select theaters Friday, March 13th.