Checking Out

Checking Out (1988)

When his best friend dies of a heart attack, Ray Macklin becomes a man obsessed with his own mortality. Convinced that all his aches and pains are an indication of his imminent death, Ray's life turns into a slapstick farce of health-crazed anxiety and hypochondria.

Дата выхода
1988-10-26
TMDB
4.4 / 10 (21)
Длительность
1 ч 36 мин
Жанры
комедия
Режиссёр
David Leland

В ролях

Интересные факты

Checking Out is a 1988 American comedy film, directed by David Leland and starring Jeff Daniels. It tells the story of a successful airline executive in his thirties who, despite a loving family and fulfilling career, experiences an existential crisis when his best friend unexpectedly dies of a heart attack.

Production

The film was based on a spec script by Joe Eszterhas. It was based on a period in his life when he made $400,000 from selling the novelisation rights to F.I.S.T. and was wealthy for the first time in his life and suffered a massive panic attack which he thought was a heart attack.

Eszterhas tried to sell the script but could not find a buyer. Three years later he was approached by an aspiring producer called Ben Myron who asked if Eszterhas had any available scripts and the writer gave him Checking Out. Eszterhas said "So he singlehandedly, unrelentingly, for two years did nothing but try to push this project. Well, nobody knew who the fuck he was, but he kept badgering people and going after people."

The script was optioned to a small production company, Island, who tried to attach various directors, eventually ending up with David Leland, who had just made Wish You Were Here and who Eszterhas called "sort of the hot, arty flavor of the moment." The production company then dropped the project but it was picked up by Britain's HandMade Films, owned by Denis O'Brien and George Harrison.

Leland said, "Since Wish You Were Here I've been sent lots of scripts, which is encouraging, and I really like this one. It's a sort of black comedy about mortality."

Filming took place in February 1988. According to Eszterhas, Leland started changing the script during filming. Eszterhas saw the rough cut and claims he "loathed" some of Leland's changes, including the addition of new subplots, creating characters "with Jewish names who are repellent and horrible" and "the fact that it's insulting to women." The writer says HandMade backed Leland, so he wrote an angry letter to Warner Bros.

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