If you have harbored a deep desire to see "Prozac Nation," the much-scheduled, never-theatrically released adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1994 best-selling novel-cum-memoir of her college depression and the impact of antidepressants on the fledgling writer's life, it hasn't been impossible.

Japanese DVDs have been available for those with all-region players, and the film showed up on cable earlier this year.

The more casually intrigued might wonder why a high-profile project with a cast that includes Christina Ricci as Wurtzel and Jessica Lange as her oppressive mother was resigned to the shelf for so long. The answer is provided with the official U.S. video release of "Prozac Nation" (Miramax), and it's not pretty.

Though the film was the opening night selection of the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, it's less than audience-friendly, being populated with more unsympathetic characters than any movie deserves.

That is not to say Ricci isn't convincing as a young writer headed for Harvard, only that her refusal to elicit sympathy, or just empathy, leaves us with no one to care about.

'STANDER'

Faring far better is "Stander" (Columbia-TriStar), a 2003 drama thrown overboard by its distributor days before it was scheduled to open in other major markets after failing to attract customers in its limited New York and Los Angeles runs.

Based on the true story of a South African police captain who came to be disgusted by his own participation in the overzealous enforcement of apartheid laws and used his anger to rationalize a series of daring bank robberies, "Stander" features Thomas Jane ("The Punisher") in the title role and Deborah Unger as his estranged wife.

'DEAR FRANKIE'

"Dear Frankie" (Miramax) is a sentimental yet affecting story about a single mother, played by Emily Mortimer, who attempts to shield her deaf son (the sweet-faced Jack McElhone) from the true nature of a father she was forced to leave. She writes Frankie letters in the guise of his dad. Gerard Butler, star of the recent adaptation of "The Phantom of the Opera," plays the sailor she hires to impersonate Frankie's father for a weekend.

'BRIDE AND PREJUDICE'

"Bride and Prejudice" (Miramax), director Gurinda Chadha's exuberant retooling of the much-filmed Jane Austen novel, sets "Pride and Prejudice" in contemporary Bombay as a Bollywood-style musical. Aishwarya Rai is one of the three unmarried daughters of socially and professionally prominent parents, who finds herself becoming attracted to a completely unsuitable visitor — an American named Darcy (Martin Henderson).

'HIDE AND SEEK'

If you didn't get enough of Dakota Fanning screaming in "War of the Worlds," you might be completed by "Hide and Seek" (Fox), in which she plays the daughter of shrink Robert De Niro, who, after her mother's apparent suicide, takes the traumatized little girl to upstate New York for some healing. Unfortunately, it gets even weirder up in the woods. If you saw the film and was dissatisfied by the ending, the DVD feels your pain: It offers alternative conclusions. None saves this from macabre mediocrity.

'PREMONITION'

Real creepiness is abundant in "Premonition" (Lions Gate) about a father who, while on family vacation, happens on an obituary of his daughter in a local newspaper.

'FILM NOIR'

The success of Warner Bros.' "Film Noir Collection" box set has spawned a sequel, "Volume 2" (Warner), collecting five more black-and-white dramas chronicling the darker side of human nature: 1947's "Born to Kill," starring Gene Tierney; 1947's "Crossfire," with Robert Young ; 1952's "Clash by Night," with Barbara Stanwyck ; the taut 1952 classic "The Narrow Margin"; and 1945's bio-pic "Dillinger."

"Dillinger" is the odd duck, more a gangster drama than film noir but a welcome DVD debut. All titles are available separately, too.