‘Revolution #9’ is tough tale of schizophrenia

Tim McCann’s “Revolution #9” is a taut, intelligent psychological drama that effectively plays one nightmare against the other: the first being a Manhattan freelance writer’s (Michael Risley) descent into schizophrenia and the other being the ordeal his fiancee (Adrienne Shelly) plunges into when she tackles the woefully inadequate mental health bureaucracy in her desperate attempt to get him some help. In regard to the second element, McCann exposes rather than preaches, and his film is the very model of the forceful, no-frills low-budget New York independent production.

James Jackson (Risley) is an articulate writer for an online arts magazine who has been dating Kim Kelly (Shelly), a restaurant bartender, for a year and a half when he announces their engagement to her relatives. It is at just this point, however, that Jackson has commenced experiencing paranoid delusions. He’s convinced that a co-worker is messing with stuff on his desk and then accuses Kim’s 11-year-old computer whiz nephew (Jase Blankfort) of sending him subliminal computer messages via a commercial for Revolution #9 perfume as part of a vast conspiracy to control his mind and those of everyone else. Jackson’s disintegration escalates as Kelly’s attempt to deal with it bogs down at every turn.

Risley is suitably harrowing, but the film’s linchpin is Shelley. Since her emergence in Hal Hartley’s 1990 “The Unbelievable Truth,” Shelly has been a beguiling presence in the East Coast independent scene but can sometimes come off as an irritatingly mannered pixie. Here she has one of her strongest roles: a caring and determined but otherwise ordinary woman put to the severest of tests, and confronted by a lack of support from her family and the initially hesitant involvement of her acerbic best friend (Callie Thorne).

“Revolution #9,” which is absorbing and terse, has some subtle, welcome comic relief from Spalding Gray as the director of the film’s title commercial, a man whose ego is flattered by Jackson, posing as an admiring journalist.

-- Kevin Thomas

“Revolution # 9.” Unrated. Adult themes, too intense for children. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes. Exclusively at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500.