Last Exit to Brooklyn

The American debut of German TV and film director Uli Edel is a pull-no-punches adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.’s uncompromising underground novel about a working-class section of Brooklyn in the 1950s. The narrative follows a group of striking union workers, drag queens, and neighborhood characters who all lead harsh lives riddled with crime, drugs, and violence of every conceivable kind. Selby (Requiem for a Dream) wrote his novel in a brusque prose style that captured the way people talked in the Red Hook of his youth. The book was banned in several European countries and was the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK when it was released in 1964. There were many attempts to adapt the novel into a film—animator Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin) came close in the ‘70s—but it took the international success of Edel’s film about the adolescent drug addict Christiane Felscherinow, Christiane F. (made in 1981 but not released until 1986) to get backing for a film like Last Exit, which hardly seemed like a big money-maker.  

The film features terrific early performances from an impressive cast of up-and-comers like Stephen Baldwin, James Lorinz, Sam Rockwell, and Ricki Lake, and well-established character actors like Burt Young and Jerry Orbach. But the most unforgettable turn comes from Jennifer Jason Leigh as a hooker who lures her tricks to back alleys where they’re subsequently beaten and mugged. With this film, Leigh, already known for taking on unflattering roles that often put her in sexually compromised positions, sealed her reputation as a singular actress willing to go pretty much anywhere on screen without it ever feeling exploitative. She has a rare ability to retain the raw truth and dignity of her characters that Last Exit puts to the test. Much of this picture is difficult to watch, and nearly all of its characters are deeply unsympathetic, yet Edel and screenwriter Desmond Nakano manage to find humanity in each individual. Thus the film comes off as compassionate for the people it depicts and the brutal environment they exist in, without coming anywhere close to romanticizing any of it.