The Rum Diary

The Rum Diary is starring Johnny Depp. There is also a movie made in 1980 available to stream on netflix called "Where the Buffalo Roam" which takes place between 1968 and 1972. Whereas the Rum Diary takes place around 1959 and 1960 just after Castro took over Cuba only this takes place in Puerto Rico, where Hunter S. Thompson takes a job at a local Newspaper. The resulting adventures make this an extreme adult film in both subject matter and consciousness but not in an R or X kind of direction that much. But this is NOT something you likely want to take even young adults to unless you have a talk with them first as to who Hunter S. Thompson is. He is considered by many one of the several greatest writers of the 20th Century for a variety of reasons. It is here in Puerto Rico that Hunter first finds his true writing voice and it is regarding the rage of the common man being taken advantage of by rich people. So, in this sense he becomes a champion for the downtrodden everywhere. However, on some level this also gets both kind of interesting and muddled at the same time because of his ongoing addictions to alcohol, women and drugs. And this appears to continue thorughout his life until he took his own life in 2005. If you want to read more about Hunter S. Thompson try reading some of his writings:
Here is his wikipedia address:

Hunter S. Thompson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

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Main article: Gonzo journalism

Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow. His writing aimed to be humorous, colorful and bizarre, and he often exaggerated events to be more entertaining. end quote.

Also, though I greatly appreciate his writing style I find it unfortunate in many ways that he had to find it by using an eyedropper and talking to a captive Crab or Lobster waiting to be cooked and eaten by someone else. So, also in this movie you see him have several breakthrough experiences that catapulted him into becoming who he became from the mid 1960s onward. The Rum Diaries is a little known about time in his life. And if I have calculated correctly he was only about 23 years old during this experience. Men had to grow up much younger than they tend to these days. I was 12 in 1960. I remember how it was then.