The movie isn't bad in its own right. It doesn't lose anything over this novel; it just feels old. That's not to say that nothing has changed in all these years. What does change is the tone of what comes before and after. When everything goes wrong, things don't feel quite so grimy and bleak. Here we can see how horrible things can get for poor Fred (played by Ray Fisher), who couldn't help but miss out on his career when no one else thought he could