'TOM Garfield is up on top but that's not where he wants to be. A brilliant writer with a string of hits to his name, he has achieved something most people dream about — success and all its trappings — but not without a cost. His wife, Helen, has left him. Their daughter, Jessie, is growing up without him. His friends have slipped away. The years have blurred together under the influence of excessive alcohol.
'Alone and burnt out in Los Angeles, he realises that the only passion left in his life is his overwhelming desire to be reunited with his family. Fired by the dreams he lost track of in the fast lane, Tom returns to Melbourne, only to find that he cannot pick up where he left off.'
Source:
'John Waters Playing It a Bit Rich', Canberra Times, 20 October 1988, p.28.
Some sources suggest that this is an uncredited adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story 'Babylon Revisited' (first published in the Saturday Evening Post on 21 February 1931), and the works do have strong similarities, especially in the father-daughter relationship. Boulevard of Broken Dreams moves its characters between the US and Australia, rather than the US and Europe, and posits a more hopeful ending by having the writer's wife leave him rather than die.
The producers do not credit 'Babylon Revisited' as the source for Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Indeed, contemporary newspaper articles imply that it is an entirely original story:
The film is the brain child of writer/producer Frank Howson. "I though it would be interesting to do a film that would show the other side of the success story... to show someone, an Australian, had become an international success, probably the most famous writer in the US, and in the process of becoming a celebrity had lost his family. He then realises that fame was not as rosy as it seemed.["]
Source:
'John Waters Playing It a Bit Rich', Canberra Times, 20 October 1988, p.28.
