Bitters and Blue Ruin (2002)

PHILADELPHIA, 1947 - Professor Roddy Schiffman, a big wheel in the psychological community of the day, is knee-deep in his latest research project: an academic text on pathological narcissism. Though his last book was a big hit, things don't look so rosy this time around; Roddy has writer's block. Things take a further nosedive when Roddy loses control and decks graduate student Sal Unmarino, who slinks back to his advisor Dr. Slavko P. Slavko. Sal spills his guts, painting a picture of a Roddy who's not only desperate to complete his book, but who has lapsed back into old ways, hitting the cups hard. Slavko senses something's not quite right, but even he is shocked when a clandestine search of Roddy's office reveals that Roddy ahs been blowing Sal off and running with a former Hollywood pretty boy, now full-time nobody named Chester Trunche. What in blue blazes could Roddy be up to...? What follows is the story of a desperate man searching to regain his former inspiration, but instead finding himself sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of dependency and hedonism as he becomes hooked on a potent and mysterious beverage known only as the "Blue Muse". Roddy's quest for the Muse takes him from atop the lofty ivory towers of academia to the lowest gutters of the seedy underculture of Philadelphia. But whether he's at a swanky urbane soiree or in the company of garrulous prostitutes, Roddy always finds himself a man out at sea. His newly found Muse has quickly become his only true love. And just when things start to turn around for him, Sal and Slavko call in the big guns in the form of one Dr. Emil Halbfass, Dean of the School, a guy who himself has more than a few screws loose. The jig is truly up when Halbfass decides to commit Roddy to an insane asylum. This touches off a chain of events that brings everything crashing down on their heads. As the worlds of academia and the underculture collide, Roddy's fate becomes inexorably intertwined with Halbfass', culminating in a danse macabre of intrigue, deception, and subterfuge... with only one possible outcome: bitters and blue ruin!