Review: Dopamine (***)

DOPAMINE
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): ***


Mark Decena's DOPAMINE is a good movie but not precisely for the reasons you
first expect. When we meet Rand (John Livingston), Winston (Bruno Campos)
and Johnson (Reuben Grundy), they are three hyperguys. Caffineheads,
they've been working day and night for three years on their software project
in their three person company. They're so jumpy that it's hard to see how
they can write code without major mistakes. And sometimes they do, as we
see when their first demo to live subjects freezes. The story appears to be
an insightful and funny look into the trials and tribulations of extreme
programming. The movie is that, but it is much more.



What the story turns out to be most interested in are relationships, of
which the story provides several but none better or more genuine than that
between Rand and Sarah (Sabrina Lloyd). She teaches in the preschool where
the guys' product is to undergo its first user test. Going by the name of
Koy Koy, the lads' pride and joy is a virtual bird that they've created on
their computers. Koy Koy is very cute and sensitive, just like Rand, its
main creator and a guy who looks like a young Kevin Spacey. A man whose
mother suffers from a bad case of Alzheimer's, Rand throws himself into his
work almost as a form of therapy. Koy Koy is clearly there to address some
of his emotional needs. He's also quite protective of Koy Koy and isn't the
least bit happy when the company's financial backers force the product
testing on them.



Sarah, on the other hand, isn't a big believer in fake animals. She keeps
asking why a live rabbit wouldn't be better. The script does a good job of
skewering everyone. The school's New Age philosophy comes under question,
for example, when one of Sarah's fellow teachers is heard instructing her
five-year-olds, "Let's draw a picture of how we could get off the conflict
escalator." This pop quiz drawing came thanks to a little girl who wanted
to punch her classmate.



Rand is a big fan of pharmacological explanations of human behavior.
Dopamine, he explains to Sarah, is drug that the "body produces naturally
during courtship." His initial attraction to her is olfactory,
specifically, the smell of her hair when she happens to bend in front of his
face. His scent glands drive him into ecstasy.



The chemistry between Rand and Sarah is touching and completely real. The
two of them have their own special needs, and it looks for a while as if
their troubles will keep them apart.



In the last act, the story takes a surprising and rewarding turn. DOPAMINE
has several parallel storylines, and all of them work. My only regret was
that the movie was shot in digital video, which sucked some of the life out
of it.



"Feelings are a limited resource, and you have to use them sparingly,"
Winston advises Rand towards the end. The irony is that Winston, the macho
man of the group, is an extrovert who blabs his feelings to everyone who'll
listen and even to those who won't. Using his tough guy persona, he acts
like he never shows emotions, which actually he does all of the time. It is
Rand who has been bottling up his, but the story is about his coming out.
Rand finally gets in touch with his feelings and isn't ashamed to express
them anymore.



DOPAMINE runs a fast 1:19. The film is rated R for "language, sexuality and
brief drug use" and would be acceptable for teenagers.



The film is playing in limited release now in the United States. In the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.



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