Chronic Town: 3 of 5 stars

Junkies and drunks are more than just punks in the land of the midnight sun.

But in Chronic Town, they’re getting me down, a dramedy that’s simply no fun.

Apologies, Robert W. Service.

Chronic is set in Fairbanks where an imbibing/inhaling cabbie (J. R Bourne) tries to get sober (sort of) and find love with a troubled no-longer-that-young stripper (Emily Wagner) while tormenting his cab dispatcher (Dan Butler) all the live-long day. Which is a pretty long day in the summer, not so much in the winter.

Director Tom Hines gives us a real sense of the isolation of urban Alaska, where substance abuse isn’t uncommon and unhappy people are at their unhappiest during the long, dark winters. But Michael Kamsky’s script, despite some interesting, dark group therapy twists, is too slight to make this anything more than a generic character study of the down and drunk.

Screening at: 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 30, Regal; 9:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2, Regal.