Institute History
Description
Sex, drugs, and new wave . . . Los Angeles in the early 1980s: a time of excess and decadence, and nobody captures it better than Bret Easton Ellis as he coadapts his own acclaimed novel for the screen. Its multistrand narrative deftly balances a vast array of characters, who represent both the top of the heap (a Hollywood dream merchant, a dissolute rock star, an aging newscaster) and the bottom (a voyeuristic doorman and an amoral ex-con). Connecting his intertwining strands are the quintessential Ellis protagonists—a group of beautiful, blonde young men and women who sleep all day and party all night, doing drugs—and one another—with abandon, never realizing that they are dancing on the edge of an abyss.
Gregor Jordan returns to Sundance (Two Hands and Buffalo Soldiers played at previous Festivals) with a glamorous and gritty exposé of a culture where too much was never enough. He presents both the seductive and repellent sides of a time when safe sex meant being on the pill. Featuring a truly all-star cast who are at the top of their game, The Informers is a scathing descent into the morally bankrupt core beneath L.A.'s superficial beauty. It is both titillating and horrifying as it captures an era on the verge of an implosion whose effects we are still feeling today.