PEOPLE I KNOW
Al Pacino is a world-weary New York show biz publicist in People I Know, so world-weary in fact that it looks like he hasn’t slept since he finished shooting on Insomnia in 2002. The bags under his eyes aren’t bags anymore, they’re suitcases. As Eli Wurman he is on the way out, a has-been from another area who medicates himself with a constant cocktail of cigarettes, booze and pills. A personal scandal threatens an event he is planning, and we follow him through the final preparations for his last big hurrah. Director Daniel Algrant pulls great performances out of Pacino, Kim Basinger and Tea Leoni and Robert Klein, who all seem to relish the chance to speak well written, smart dialogue. Set in the present People I Know feels very contemporary, but manages to have a timeless quality about it. The seamy underbelly of New York doesn’t really change from year to year, only the faces do.
