The Adderall Diaries

Stephen Elliott (James Franco) spun his tortured youth into a wildly successful memoir THE ADDERALL DIARIES. When his publisher (Cynthia Nixon) lands him a lauded contract for a follow-up, pressure mounts as he silently fights the constraints of writer’s block. But an unexpected and very public visit from the father he claimed was dead (a riveting Ed Harris) brings to light accusations that shake the book’s entire foundation. Now faced with both producing work and repairing his reputation, for inspiration he becomes transfixed on a local murder trial he sees as a parallel to his own life. A romance with a reporter (Amber Heard) covering the case hauntingly reveals that his painful past remains embodied in his present as he falls back into the dark corners of his adrenaline-fueled, masochistic ways. “We understand the world by how we retrieve memories, re-order information into stories to justify how we feel,” reads Elliott’s own words. Sometimes, he finds, whatever we tell ourselves to fall sleep at night can become exactly what keeps us awake. –N.D.