Woods hopes that what sets Paradise apart is its brutal honesty. A lot of these movies like Trainspotting and Leaving Las Vegas, as brilliant as they are, seem to only want to show the horrors' of addiction. And that's what the fun and exuberance of this movie is about-I mean somebody must be enjoying dope or they wouldn't be doing it. Many critics feel drug movies romanticize the high life, despite their high-minded ideals. Woods is emphatic in his defense of Clark's gutsy verit approach.
Kids can smell bullshit a mile away.
We hope to reach kids on their own level of reality, through truth. Truth was all over Clark's directorial debut KIDS, a stark portrait of a group of nihilist New York adolescents assuaging their alienation through promiscuity, alcohol and violence. Paradise is no holiday either. Having conquered her own drug demons years ago, she seems to channel those psychic scabs here. Still, she admitted to being pleased with the results.