As movies about misanthropic outsider artists with medical issues go, “Don’t Worry” doesn’t come close to the superb “American Splendor” with Paul Giamatti as the irascible Harvey Pekar. When compared to the subset of top-tier films about men in wheelchairs, including “Coming Home,” “My Left Foot,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “The Theory of Everything,” it falls somewhat short. And, at age 43, as good of an actor as Joaquin Phoenix is, he looks too old as the young, out-of-control Callahan (who physically appears to be modeled on an orange-haired version of Jeff Spicoli). Also bothersome is how his growth as a cartoonist, the most interesting fact about Callahan, becomes secondary to his biggest emotional obstacle: the rage he harbors for his unwed mother, who gave him up for adoption as a baby.
Robin Williams, acknowledged in the credits, brought the project based on Callahan’s same-titled 1989 memoir to filmmaker Gus Van Sant two decades ago with the hopes of playing the lead and producing. Who knows what the result would have been if his “Good Will Hunting” star was the one zipping along in his motorized wheelchair, traffic and curbs be damned. Perhaps humor would take more prominence over self-pity. That Van Sant kept his commitment to the late comic is commendable. But Van Sant the screenwriter does a disservice to the material by constantly chopping up narrative strands into bite-size chunks and later circling back to key incidents—the night of the accident, group recovery meetings, a bunch of teen skateboarders who rescue Callahan after he tumbles out of his chair, an inspirational onstage speech that he gives to fellow addicts. It’s like having a waiter replace your plate of food with another one before you get to finish it and later brings the original plate back after it has gone cold.
To continue this food metaphor, the sides tend to upstage the main course—namely, Phoenix. The colorful sideshow of characters in his AA-like group is straight out of a John Waters movie. Rocker Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth shows up as a no-longer Valium- addicted desperate housewife. German acting icon Udo Kier’s silver-haired presence is a gift enough. But one participant dominates these gatherings, a plus-sized force of nature in the guise of musician Beth Ditto, who dares to call BS on Callahan as he refuses to hold himself accountable for his sorry state.
