One, moving to Hollywood. Though I always revered the picture and found it underrated, I now have a better understanding of it. After living in a place where rich guys often seem as unhappy as the un-bathed can collector muttering outside my window, it’s even more believable and astute. Not that I necessarily feel sorry for them, but, I’ve seen these people—either driving in their BMW convertibles, discussing some stupid idea for a TV show or cutting up coke in the basement of some producer type’s Laurel Canyon home.

“Everything is very distracting, but what I've really noticed is that mainly the thing I'm most distracted by is myself.”

So says Penn’s Hollywood casting agent Eddie (with mustache—I think I like Penn with a ‘stache) the coked-out philosopher in this darkly humorous study of Hollywood with its pretty, salacious underbelly. A wicked indictment of the alienating world of tinseltown, Hurlyburly did for the business of show what Glengarry Glen Ross did for the business of sales, dissecting it from the inside in.

Adapted from Rabe's 1984 off-Broadway hit of the same name, Hurlyburly has less of the play's original satirical edge and more acting with a capital A. Quite a bit darker, and much more personal, the film is more about guys--or types of guys. Guys who speak with extraordinary words that sound like they mean nothing, but often mean everything. Guys like Eddie, the heart and fragmented soul of the picture.

These guys are an on-again, off-again quartet of varied psychologies, from self-destructive to oily to dangerous. At the film's opening, Eddie gets straight to the point, immediately snorting as much coke as Al Pacino's lawyer (also played by Penn) did in Carlito's Way. He lives in a stark, glassy bachelor pad with his best friend and business partner, Mickey (Kevin Spacey—so perfectly sociopathic Spacey here). The first crisis of the morning occurs when Eddie's friend Phil (Chazz Palminteri) shows up. An out-of-work actor whose wife has just kicked him out of the house “You didn't kill her, did you?” asks Eddie), he needs a place to crash for a while. The second crisis involves Eddie's ex, Darlene (Robin Wright Penn), a vacuously complicated woman (or not?) who is now dating Mickey.

Eddie and Mickey spar over this latest wrinkle in their friendship, and the ferocious repartee reveals two personalities in opposition. Mickey, the sarcastic, arrogant one, is ruffled by nothing. Bemused by his friend's dramatic outpouring of anger, he is quick with a comeback that's lethal to Eddie's already deflated ego. Eddie is the impassioned, failed romantic and the further bitter of the two. His mind is constantly in a race with his mouth, and his urgent but always insightful reflections are expressed any time any place--much of the time on his cell phone.

Rounding out this slithering quartet is Artie (Garry Shandling), an unctuous writer whose idea of a “care package” is dropping off a teenage drifter (Anna Paquin) at Eddie's place for the men to enjoy. To get back at Mickey for taking his girl, Eddie grabs this “present” and takes her upstairs for himself and Phil. This moment is disturbing not for its pedophilic nature but for the reasons behind the men's actions. Unlike Mickey, Eddie and Phil seem to be doing what they think they are supposed to do rather than what they want to do. Eventually Phil, longing for his wife, cannot stand the sight of the girl and accuses her of distracting him from his football game. In a terribly mean yet sad moment, he socks her.

But most distracted is Eddie. All day long, the twitchy ponderer watches TV, makes phone calls, obsesses over Darlene, snorts coke and talks--about everything. He delivers a series of speeches that, underneath their drug-induced disorganization, reveal an existential condition that is actually quite thoughtful. “Y'ever have that experience where your thoughts are like these separate, self-sustaining phone-booths in this vast, uninhabited shopping mall in your head?” Eddie asks. “We're all just background in each other's lives, just cardboard cutouts bumping around in a vague spin-off of what was once prime-time life.”

Again, Penn is brilliant here; his performance plumbs the depths of this character without any noticeable strain or methody overacting. Though many will find no redeeming qualities in any of these men, Penn's Eddie is by far the most human, and the most wounded, of the bunch. Penn conveys Eddie's smarts without being too smart and reveals his need for communication, even though Eddie himself has a hell of a time trying to communicate.

Complementing Penn is Spacey, who works as a monotone foil to Penn's emotional wreck. Dry and stilted (he delivers his lines as if he's in a Mamet play), Spacey reveals little, if any, warmth to his mysterious character. He has no interest in appearing sympathetic, though it's hard not to like Spacey. Staring straight ahead with glassy eyes and a cold, slight smile, Spacey can convey everything and nothing in one look.

Shandling and Palminteri deliver fine performances that are darker extensions of their normal personas. Shandling reveals a much oilier side to his likable, self-deprecating Larry Sanders image. Palminteri plays a bad actor well (very well) and is much more disturbing than we've ever seen him. Phil is not smart enough to know that his friends keep him around for amusement only, and he attempts to keep up with their acerbic conversations. He strains to articulate what is going on inside him, but he can only work on an instinctual level--in his case, with violence.

Using each other as punching bags for their quick repartee, these men spit out angry, drug-induced epithets about everything from sex to the importance of male friendship. Hurlyburly's trenchant dialogue and brilliant performances, combined with simultaneously fluid and choppy direction by Anthony Drazan, make for an intense viewing experience that boasts some of the best ensemble work of that year. And again, Penn’s best performance in the last ten years.