The five-man team plays all of the major characters, and many of the bit parts. The film was written by four of the five members of the troupe, along with Norm Hiscock; the troupe's fifth member, Dave Foley, was busy filming NewsRadio during the writing sessions. Foley also plays few characters in the film as opposed to the other four members. Brendan Fraser and Janeane Garofalo have cameos in the film, Garofalo's being almost entirely absent from the final cut. The film is about the introduction of a powerful antidepressant, GLeeMONEX. The drug is rushed into production to help the ailing Roritor Pharmaceuticals and becomes an overnight media sensation. Those involved in the early stages of GLeeMONEX – the scientists, marketing arm and several early users – are followed, right up through the troubling coma-like side effect of being stuck in their happiest memory.
Marv is Roritor's assistant. Despite their seemingly close relationship, he actually dislikes Roritor to the point that his happiest memory is urinating into his boss' latte.
Alice is a fellow scientist and apparent love interest of Chris. She eventually watches from a distance as he slips away into celebrity.
Grivo is a rock star famous for his bleak and pessimistic rock, as well as a general indifference toward his audience, fame, and music. After taking the drug, Grivo switches to jangly, upbeat pop music; his new song "Happiness Pie" becomes an anthem for the post-GLeeMONEX world and wins a "World Music Video Award" for it.
Chris Cooper is the inventor of the drug and main protagonist of the film. He is motivated by the clumsy suicide of his father to create a cure for clinical depression, but quickly gets swept up in the resulting fame.
Don Roritor heads Roritor Pharmaceuticals, founded on his invention of the drug Stummies. He has a close but contentious relationship with his spineless assistant, Marv.
Mrs. Hurdicure is an old woman who initially is severely depressed and an early test subject for GLeeMONEX. Her happiest memory is shown to be a brief and obligatory Christmas visit from her son, played by Dave Foley. The drug quickly whips her out of the depression, but she inevitably becomes the first victim of its side effect. She is also the test subject for its antidote, a depressant.
Wally Terzinsky is a husband, father, and closetedhomosexual. Wally masturbates to gay pornography, frequents public bath houses, and was sexually active with men during his military service – but remains unaware of his sexual orientation. He is prescribed GLeeMONEX by a frustrated therapist, . His happiest memory is a homoeroticArmy mission fantasized by Wally while being chewed out by his drill instructor. Wally finds himself standing considerably closer to his drill instructor when through fantasizing. Shortly after this, he finally admits that he is in fact, homosexual.
Some characters from the television series appear briefly in Brain Candy. Among those who do are the "white trash couple," the cops, Cancer Boy, talk show host Nina Bedford, Raj & Lacey, Melanie, Bellini, and the bigoted cab driver.
Ginny Hurdicure
Raymond's kid
Raymond's kid
Cooper's groupie
Cooper's groupie
Wally Jr.
Controversy
The group ran into trouble with the character "Cancer Boy". Reprised from the final episode of the TV show, in a sketch that satirized the idea of being as offensive as possible, Cancer Boy is played by Bruce McCulloch dressed in a bald cap, with pale white makeup, using a wheelchair. He relays depressing information with a cheerful smile and releases a hit pop single entitled "Whistle When You're Low". Many found the character to be in exceedingly poor taste. Paramount Pictures fought extensively with the troupe to cut the offending scenes, to no avail. The group has expressed some regret over their hardline position years later, feeling the battle left Paramount bitter and reluctant to fully market the film.
Reaction
The film opened to a lukewarm critical reception. Siskel and Ebert were split, and had a heated disagreement over Brain Candy on their weekly review show: Gene Siskel gave the movie three-and-a-half stars, calling the movie "audacious, clever, very funny" and predicted it would become a midnight cult film; Roger Ebert claimed that he did not laugh once during the screening and found it "awful, terrible, dreadful, stupid, idiotic, unfunny, labored, forced, painful, bad." Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it " more than a sloppy showcase for the group's costume-changing tricks." Edward Guthmann at The San Francisco Chronicle, however, called Brain Candy "a splendid showcase for their diverse, frisky talents." It maintains a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 36 reviews. It was also nominated for Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy at the 1996 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards but lost to Bio-Dome. The film suffered poor box office returns. The Kids themselves have expressed mixed feelings over the finished product, most notably on the behind-the-scenes DVD of their 2000 tour, Same Guys, New Dresses. The troupe took a four-year hiatus after Brain Candy's release, though the break-up was already in motion even before filming was underway.
Alternate title and ending
An original working title for the movie was The Drug, which is what GLeeMONEX is extensively referred to during the course of the film. Bruce McCulloch came up with Brain Candy at the studio's request for something more marketable. Two endings were filmed, with the relatively more upbeat conclusion making the final cut. In the alternate version, Dave Foley plays a crazed activist who leads a militant movement against GLeeMONEX. Chris Cooper, unable to cope with the mayhem his drug has created, decides to take it himself, and ends up lapsing into a coma. The unused ending has not been officially released, but a leaked workprint was widely traded among fans on the internet during the late 1990s.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack album was released the Tuesday prior to the film's release. It consists of music from the film, interspersed with dialog.
