The Basketball Diaries (film)

The Basketball Diaries is a 1995 American coming of age crime drama film directed by Scott Kalvert, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, James Madio, and Mark Wahlberg. The film is an adaptation of Jim Carrolls autobiographical work of the same name, telling the story of Carrolls teenage years as a promising high school basketball player and writer who developed an addiction to heroin with his misguided friends.

The film is an adaptation of poet and memoirist Jim Carrolls Leonardo DiCaprio juvenile diaries chronicling his kaleidoscopic freefall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, Jims life centers on the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind. A best friend who is dying of leukemia, a coach Swifty who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an appetite for cocaine and heroin all begin to encroach on young Jims dream of becoming a basketball star.Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mothers mounting concern for her son. He cannot go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin for which he steals, robs and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie, an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim picked up a game now and then, is he able to begin the long journey back to sanity, which ultimately ends with Jims incarceration in Rikers Island. After months in prison, he leaves and later does a talk show about his drug life, after turning down free drugs from his old friend, Pedro. ........

Source: Wikipedia