I’m somewhat aghast to find that James Cox’s 2003 film Wonderland has a measly 34% RT score. It’s a bleak film, as “sordid,” as the RT consensus says, and between that and its occasionally frenetic stylistic flourishes, it’s obvious that it won’t be for everyone. But this grim, grimy, coked-up, kaleidoscopic look at the 1981 Wonderland Murders and a post-limelight John Holmes (Val Kilmer)–self-serving, self-pitying, and still intermittently sympathetic–has a real force to it. It’s not always subtle, but it doesn’t need to be; it’s dealing with blunt force, literally and figuratively, and with characters who are, for the most part, only as clever as they have to be. (And, cynically but accurately, that’s not that clever.) Wonderland also features some superb performances, most notably from Kilmer and Lisa Kudrow, and a killer soundtrack. I think all that’s enough for me to say that this movie has gotten a raw deal. It should be known in its own right, not just as “the film about that one part of Boogie Nights with Alfred Molina.”

By the time Wonderland starts, John Holmes’s porn career is already over, but he’s still a handsome bullshitter with an eye-raising reputation. He’s also an addict who’s burned almost every dealer around, and the only one who still gives him the time of day–Josh Lucas’s vibrantly unhinged, smilingly sadistic Ron Launius–tolerates him only because Holmes, with no other options, will soak up humiliation after humiliation if it gets him what he needs. But then Launius’s “Wonderland gang” robs kingpin Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian), and Nash retaliates with a grisly, hard-to-watch multiple murder. And the only two people left to really talk about what happened are Holmes and professional criminal David Lind (Dylan McDermott), whose girlfriend is one of the victims. Lind and Holmes tell competing stories, and it’s not spoiling anything to say that Lind’s, though certainly framed to his advantage, is a hell of a lot more convincing.

But Holmes is, as he himself will tell you, a “survivor.” He’s rattled, hurt, and even traumatized at times, genuinely shaken by both what he does and what he witnesses, but ultimately, the guy’s made of rubber. He’ll bounce back, at least for now. He’s sure of it. The people around him–the Wonderland gang, his heartbreakingly young girlfriend Dawn (Kate Bosworth), his warm and viciously furious ex Sharon (Lisa Kudrow)–won’t necessarily be so lucky, and he accepts that. His love is sometimes sincere but always selfish. (The “what happened next” text at the end of the movie tells us that the real Holmes eventually died of complications from AIDS, but what it leaves unsaid is that he continued to make porn movies after he knew he was HIV-positive, deliberately concealing his status from his scene partners.) “A mile of dick and no balls,” someone says of Holmes, and that’s about right. Wonderland nails that particular portrait of him, and it understands how he would live in the world–who would be drawn to him and who would be repulsed by him. That bit of character-work alone is worth the price of admission.

Wonderland is streaming on Max.