Director Tom DiCillo scrutinizes the entertainment industry once again (see also: LIVING IN OBLIVION and THE REAL BLONDE) with DELIRIOUS. The film stars Steve Buscemi as a scuzzy New York City-based paparazzi photographer named Les, and Michael Pitt as a homeless wannabe thespian named Toby. Toby moves into Les's squalid Lower East Side apartment and works, for free, as his assistant. But it doesn't take long before Toby's career is on the up after he's invited to an exclusive party by Les. Toby meets casting director Dana (Gina Gershon) at the party, and subsequently meets pop star K'harma (Alison Lohman). Dana helps Toby to realize his silver screen dreams, while K'harma becomes his celebrity girlfriend. Unfortunately Les, who becomes apoplectic with rage at this sudden upturn in his protege's life, decides to stalk Toby and, fueled by bitterness and jealousy, plots to bring his career to an abrupt halt.

Buscemi gives a wonderful performance as the cranky Les, perfectly portraying a self-loathing New Yorker whose brash exterior masks genuine insecurity and grave personal disappointment. Pitt, Lohman, and Gershon also deserve praise for the way they inhabit the kind of characters that run rife throughout the film and music industries. DELIRIOUS further develops various ideas from DiCillo's previous work, particularly THE REAL BLONDE, and his oeuvre is slowly developing into a fascinating treatise on the love/hate relationship he grudgingly endures with the entertainment industry.