Less Than Zero (1987) on Netflix
Clay Easton comes home to Los Angeles for Christmas and finds his ex-girlfriend Blair and his best friend Julian using cocaine. Julian owes his dealer, Rip, fifty thousand dollars.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.4/1023,980 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes48%
Trailer
Plot summary
Clay Easton, eighteen, is home for Christmas after his first term at college in New Hampshire. His wealthy Los Angeles family has broken up. Blair, his high school girlfriend, now works as a model and uses cocaine, and she has been sleeping with Julian Wells, Clay's best friend from school. He and Blair begin seeing each other again. Julian's record company fell apart and his family cut him off for stealing to pay for drugs, so he has nowhere to live. Rip, a former classmate, sells him cocaine and wants fifty thousand dollars Julian owes him. Blair tells Clay that Julian needs help.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Less Than Zero (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Cinematographer Edward Lachman recalled that the studio became very conservative about the Red Hot Chili Peppers being sweaty and shirtless in the film, and destroyed an incredible Steadicam shot because they had to cut around the band being bare-chested.
- At an early test screening the studio recruited an audience aged 15 to 24, who hated Robert Downey Jr.'s character, so new scenes were shot to make his and Jami Gertz's characters more repentant, including a high school graduation scene showing the three main characters as friends in better times.
- In adapting the best-selling novel the producers changed the central character, Clay, because they felt he was too passive, and eliminated his bisexuality and casual drug use.
- Bret Easton Ellis hated the film on its initial release but later warmed to it, admitting it bears no resemblance to his novel while capturing "a certain youth culture during that decade that no other movie caught"; he felt it was miscast apart from Downey and Spader.
- Ellis confirmed in a May 2010 interview that Quentin Tarantino had been "trying to get Fox to let him remake the 1987 film", and in 2012 said again that Tarantino "has shown interest" in adapting the story.
- The soundtrack was released by Def Jam Recordings on November 6, 1987, peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200 and 22 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and was certified gold on February 8, 1988.
