Skin Deep (1989) * * *

Directed by:  Blake Edwards

Starring:  John Ritter, Vincent Gardenia, Julianne Phillips, Joel Brooks, Alyson Reed

Blake Edwards' Skin Deep is a comedy that manages to tell the story of an alcoholic womanizer with a light touch, so we don't despair even as its hero does.     Zach Hutton (Ritter) is a famed writer who hasn't written anything in years.      His wife throws him out after walking in on him fighting with both of his mistresses.      He tells his bartender/friend Barney (Gardenia) that he is a complusive womanizer, but his bigger problem is his alcoholism.     He is rarely seen without a drink in his hand and is arrested for drunk driving at least three times during the course of the movie.      I also counted two accidents caused by Zach ogling an attractive female passerby.    

He is a mess, at the mercy of vices he can't (or won't) give up.    He regularly sees a psychiatrist, who offers suggestions and tells stories, but isn't "the burning bush" as he plainly puts it to Zach.    His advice, "If an alcoholic wants me to cure him, I tell him first to stop drinking," is lost on Zach until the moment of enlightenment when he realizes what it means.      This is the stuff of sad drama, indeed, but Skin Deep approaches Zach with sympathy and humor.     We want him to get better because, underneath it all, he's a likable, intelligent guy.     We can even forgive him his trespasses, as does Barney when he offers him his spare room to sleep off his hangover.     "Don't throw up in the fish tank again," he warns Zach.     He then finds Zach wrapped in toilet paper.

The key to the film's success is Ritter, who is effortlessly charming and likable despite his self-destructive ways.     Ritter was best known for playing Jack Tripper on Three's Company at the time, but he's up to the task of playing Zach, who manages to stay just this side of being a pathetic drunk.    Perhaps the only difference between he and a drunk passed at on the street is that he has money from living off his laurels as a once-gifted writer.     Zach has a few other misadventures on the road to sobriety and monogamy, including a one-night stand with a female bodybuilder and a girlfriend who sets his piano on fire as he's playing Cole Porter songs.  

There are a couple of slapsticky moments which I could've done without, including Zach's visit to a dietary clinic where shock treatments are administered by an angry ex-girlfriend.     Back in 1989, the scene involving glow-in-the dark condoms was met with riotous laughter by the theater audience.    It's original and outrageous, but not all that funny.     These scenes play like Edwards hedging his bets and throwing in some gratuitous slapstick when none is necessary.     I prefer Skin Deep when it's quieter, amusing, and sees Zach as we see him; a guy who can grasp happiness if he can only get out of his own way.      Certainly alcoholism and compulsive behavior aren't usually the stuff of comedy, unless it's handled in just the right way.    Edwards does so here, just like he did with "10".