Drama. Starring Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Christian McKay. Directed by Mark Pellington. (R. 124 minutes. at Bay Area theaters.)

“I Melt With You” takes a while to reveal itself, so stick with it. It’s a movie about four middle-aged guys having an annual reunion, and the tendency is to expect scenes that accurately reflect what such a reunion might be like. But no, this is not a movie about typical men. this is something else, a study of morbid group dynamics as well as a glimpse into the inner mechanisms of four of the most miserable human beings on the planet.

Really, I need talk to you about this movie before you see it; otherwise, you’re going to hate it. Moreover, you will hate it for all the right reasons. But there are righter reasons for you to like this, or at least respect it, or at least be glad for the experience of it, and that’s now our subject for today.

You know how I realized I actually liked “I Melt With you?” I kept talking about it, and at one point, in the middle of mocking it, I accidentally referred to it as “a good picture.” That’s when I realized, yes, it really is good, albeit in ways that are different from other movies.

Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Christian McKay play childhood pals who get together for a long weekend every year, where they reminisce and get wasted (nonstop pot, cocaine and pills) in ways that would challenge the capacities of other, more physically average, 44-year-olds. Jane is a ladies’ man/failed novelist. Lowe plays a doctor with a meaningless, unrewarding practice. Piven is a financial wizard with the morals of Bernie Madoff. And McKay is sensitive, gay and grieving.

Just for the record, I don’t believe in these characters as friends, don’t buy their interaction and don’t particularly like the use of music and montage sequences to gloss over gaps in the script. I also don’t believe that four middle-aged guys can fill their house with young people just by showing up at a bar and announcing that they’re having a party. of course not. But “I Melt With You” is not about being realistic.

It’s an opera on the subject of middle-aged disappointment, presented in extremes of nihilism and overindulgence. like opera, it externalizes an inner state of irrational, flailing self-hatred and misery. It is not about self-hatred and misery as it exists in the world, but an expressionistic rendering of an inner state. no one screams and smears feces on the wall in “I Melt With you,” but if you can imagine an aesthetic rendering of four men doing something along that line – acted with extreme commitment by actors salivating at the chance to let go – you’ll be on your way to imagining this film and understanding its perverse appeal.

This article appeared on page E – 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle

‘I Melt With You’ review: Seeing twisted appeal

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