ADDICTED TO HER LOVE (aka Love Is the Drug)

OK, so richie-rich Lizzy Caplan is hot. So it is unsurprising that a geek boy in her high school class totally crushes on her and gets in wayyy over his head.

The box of Addicted to Her Love (which formerly had the just-as-forgettable title Love is the Drug) touted the film as a cross between Kids and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Well, if all fucked-up teen movies can be related to those two, I guess you could call the comparison valid. But I found myself surprised that Addicted to her Love was a surprisingly watchable and affecting drama... one that was also bleak enough that I don't need to revisit it anytime soon.

At the end of his high school career, the hot slutty rich chick Sara (Lizzy Caplan, True Blood) notices geeky working-class Jonah (John Patrick Amedori) in her literature class for the first time. In a paper, he references an obscure character from the Beat Generation—a woman that Sara's actress mom just so happened to play in a little-seen movie. Well, that link is enough for her to talk to Jonah for the first time, and he is thrilled as he has always crushed on hot Sara from afar. The moment of connection even gives Jonah enough guts to crash an end-of-school party at one of the rich kids' houses. Just when he thinks the cool snobby rich kids are going to toss his ass on the lawn, they find out he works at a pharmacy as a delivery boy. Bingo! How do you get the attention of these rich brats? Give them easy access to drugs.

Jonah eagerly falls into Sara's world. There's her boyfriend Troy (Jonathon Trent) whose biggest dilemma is getting in to Brown where he'll be away from Sara (she doesn't seem to care as much as he does). There's Lucas (the excellent D.J. Cotrona) who is a live-wire of mean. He is suspicious, and maybe jealous of Jonah, and is more than ready to boot his ass to the door as soon as Jonah's usefulness has expired. And there's Erin, the ditzy but not necessarily mean ex of Lucas, and Sara's best friend.

You know that the mix of drugs, leisure time, and boo-hoo-we-have-to-grow-up is going to catch up to these kids in a bad, bad way. You also know that Jonah is in way over his head, and his crush on the nice-but-taken Sara will only get him into trouble. So it is really no surprise when all hell breaks loose, and things go very very wrong.

But to its credit, Addicted to Her Love makes the inevitable tragedy and its aftermath very believable, and things don't end in a tidy little package. No character, even the creepy Lucas, comes off as completely bad, and the film takes its time wrapping up storylines in a believable way. When all is said and done, these kids are all just really fucked up. It may not be fun to live in this world of poor little rich kids in LA, but it does make for an intriguing visit.