Big Bad Love

Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket) and three-time OscarÂ(r) nominee* Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment) "achieve a tempestuous chemistry" (E! Online) in this alternately poignantand funny film based on the stories of Mississippi writer Larry Brown. Co-starring Rosanna Arquette, Paul Le Mat and Angie Dickinson, Big Bad Love is "blazingly alive, admirable [and] marvelously cinematic" (The Hollywood Reporter)! A sexy publisher reads submissions on horseback. A house floods with the tears of an overprotective grandma. And a soldier braves a minefield to bring a toy to his kid. But nothing in the fantasy life of alcoholic writer Leon Barlow (Howard) can compare with his reality. From a fiery relationship with his ex-wife (Winger) to enough rejectionslips to spell out the word "failure," it's no wonder Leon escapes into his imagination until a tragedy forces him to focus on tying his two estranged worlds back together. *1993: Actress, Shadowlands; 1983: Actress, Terms of Endearment; 1982: Actress, An Officer and a Gentleman

Husband and wife Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket) and Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment, An Officer and a Gentleman) star in Big Bad Love, a fragmented adaptation of stories by Southern writer Larry Brown. Leon Barlow (Howard) is a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, long-haired, and deeply unhappy aspiring writer who pulls a dozen rejection slips out of his mailbox every day. He fights with his ex-wife Marilyn (Winger) over his undependability, helps his best friend Monroe (Paul Le Mat) paint a house, and generally tries to get through his life with some semblance of purpose. The struggle of everyday life is well balanced by vivid realizations of Barlow's dreams, fantasies, and fleeting thoughts. Just at the point when the vague plot of Big Bad Love threatens to become maddening, the movie crystallizes with a tragedy that brings the underlying grief into focus. A messy but deeply felt movie. --Bret Fetzer