An author (James Franco) with writer’s block confronts the unreliability of memory in this unfocused drama — ironic, considering the titular drug is prescribed for attention deficit disorder. “The Adderall Diaries,” adapted from Stephen Elliott’s memoir, traverses various plot lines about a man-child artist processing his broken adolescence, a well worn trope that’s tough to elevate beyond eye-roll level.
Director Pamela Romanowsky (“The Color of Time”) flashes between Elliott’s present — as the former addict tries to gin up a manuscript for an impatient publisher— and his past, in brief spurts of violence with his volatile father (Ed Harris). Add in Amber Heard as a sylph-like reporter who briefly indulges the author’s S&M proclivity, and Christian Slater as an accused murderer the writer aims to profile for his own “In Cold Blood,” and you’ve got a patchwork of narcissism that isn’t stitched together all that well.