'Shrink': A hackneyed attack on La-La Land

It's hard to resist a film in which a Hollywood actor, played by Robin Williams, is told to "make better movies."

Also pretty irresistible is Gore Vidal, playing a snooty talk-show host who responds to a guest's on-the-air crackup by making sure the host is the one who has the last word.

If "Shrink" had ended there, it would have been a better movie than it is. Unfortunately, its creators follow up this perfectly reasonable finale with a series of tidy endings that couldn't be more gimmicky.

Kevin Spacey, in full "American Beauty" midlife-crisis mode (he's even introduced registering his depression in the shower), plays Henry Carter, a Los Angeles shrink who appears on Vidal's show to tell people not to buy "Stop Feeling Sad," his self-help book.

He's also the link who connects several showbiz clients, including a high-strung agent (Dallas Roberts), his patient assistant (Pell James), an alcoholic actor (Williams) and an aging, diet-conscious actress (Saffron Burrows), who relieves her anxieties by going on a late-night ice-cream binge with Carter.

"I just have patients now," says the widowed Carter, lamenting the fact that he no longer has friends — though he's actually fairly tight with his father (Robert Loggia), his drug dealer (Jesse Plemons) and an aspiring screenwriter (Mark Webber).

The director, Jonas Pate ("Friday Night Lights"), handles the talented, "Crash"-style ensemble smoothly enough. But the script by Thomas Moffett, who cowrote last month's disposable "The Last International Playboy," slickly satirizes the movie industry's fascination with vampires and special effects without being especially compelling or original.

It's largely left to the actors to suggest nuances in characters who often seem insistently one-note. Roberts energizes his scenes; Burrows has her affecting moments; and Spacey, Williams and Vidal bring an old-pro touch to the picture.

But any resemblance to HBO's excellent "In Treatment," starring Gabriel Byrne as the shrink and Dianne Wiest as his mentor, is entirely superficial.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com