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Review #383 of 365
Movie Review of SherryBaby (2006) [R] 95 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $9.00
Where Viewed: Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 30 January 2007
Time: 8:05 p.m.
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: 23 January 2007
Directed by: Laurie Collyer (Nuyorican Dream)
Written by: Laurie Collyer
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Stranger Than Fiction) • Brad William Henke (Hollywoodland) • Sam Bottoms (Shopgirl) • Kate Burton ("Grey's Anatomy") • Giancarlo Esposito (Last Holiday) • Ryan Simpkins ("Wonder Showzen") • Danny Trejo (Hood of Horror) • Rio Hackford (Deja Vu) • Bridget Barkan ("Law & Order")
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Most of the country has had to wait far too long to get a look at what was reputed to be Maggie Gyllenhaal's Oscar®-worthy role of 2006, Sherry Swanson, in SherryBaby. The film bears a striking kinship to the 2005 similarly struggling independent Debra Granik film Down to the Bone starring Vera Farmiga. Both concern a female central character, mothers no less, with unquenchable thirsts for heavy drugs and dangerous sexual relationships. Highlighting the apparent disposability of such people in USA society, both films chronicle the challenges of getting and staying clean regardless of the compulsion to want to be a good mother for one's children. In Sherry's case, from age 16-22, heroine was her best friend. Along the way came a daughter, Alexis (Ryan Simpkins) who has now grown up under the care of Sherry's brother Bob (Brad William Henke) and his wife, Lynette (Bridget Barkan) during Sherry's extended time in prison. An early parole for Sherry has convinced her she'll get a new lease on life, a job, and her daughter back—the one thing that has kept her going through prison. Unfortunately, much has happened while she's been gone. Bob and Lynette and Alexis have become a tightly knit little family. While most people locked up indefinitely in prison for heroine abuse should be so lucky as to have a relative willing and able to take on the social, emotional, and economic demands of raising another person's child, self-absorbed Sherry doesn't quite see it that way. Immediately, she wants Alexis back. She cannot imagine that she's been away for years, and that Alexis has been stable and fine and, painfully perhaps, better off without her. Resorting to using her sexual guile on anyone willing to let her, she works it hard to get what she wants. But the cold, cruel universe knows her secret. She deeply and dearly wants to return to her old drug habits. She drinks and smokes and does everything else, that kernel of a dream of having Alexis back the only thing keeping her on this side of the line. Her tough-nosed parole officer, Hernandez (Giancarlo Esposito) does everything he can to help her by not letting her hurt herself, eventually slips up a tad not realizing she's drinking all the time and used a sexual favor to acquire a job working with children in a Head Start program, and lets her off the hook a time when she should have gone straight back to prison. Glimpses into Sherry's interactions with her father suggest there may have been some reasons she turned to heroine at 16. There may have been a nasty life at home from which she was desperately trying to escape. In any case, she hooks up with the wrong people at the wrong time, shuns real help, and continues to fail to see the connection between her wrong doing and her brother's lack of eagerness to return Alexis to her.
"…Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers a rough, tough, sexually raw performance "
This story, not far away from its predecessor, Down to the Bone, ends gray—somewhere between a complete catastrophe and rays of hope. There's no way to know for sure if Sherry will ever be better. She does make a major step forward in understanding herself and how she's still far, far, far from recovered. Nonetheless, the repetitive, cyclical nature of her life is painfully sad to watch. Because there are but a few hints as to what may have driven her to drugs, there is actually quite little in her character to establish empathy with the audience. What is the point, therefore, of this story? Writer / director Laurie Collyer seems to have fallen into the same boat as Debra Granik did with Down to the Bone. There is automatic sorrow for a child of a drug addict mother. Everyone feels it. Likewise, there is pain in watching a mother find herself unable to be a mother because of drugs. But that's it. That's the end. Once the realization kicks in that taking drugs is a personal choice, that drugs are illegal for a reason, precisely because this kind of thing can happen whether the casual cocaine snorters and heroine injectors, and pot smokers want to admit it to themselves or not, a large number of people whether a small percentage of total users or not is irrelevant, end up addicts, junkies, homeless, criminals, in prison, and dead. These stories are not, but for the Grace of God go I stories though. Every person, except those who have drugs forced upon them, has a choice to NOT take drugs ever, and it is in the acceptance of that responsibility that most of the empathy for the person sort of drains away. So, it makes watching these sorts of films terribly difficult. It's not clear, really what one is supposed to draw from them other than anger that despite all the knowledge and evidence and similar films and stories and education, we still have people in our society every day facing these same problems. We have children growing up in foster care or worse because their mothers or fathers or both made the decision to use drugs. These films are not down on your luck stories, they are stories about weak people who cannot resist temptation or choose drugs and alcohol to escape their miserable lives thereby ruinging the lives of countless others in the process. Unfortunately, these do not serve as societal wake-up calls as maybe they should. Indeed, that might make for the more compelling film. Why don't these films serve in that fashion? Why has our society decided that the war on drugs is un-winnable? Why did the government take on tobacco where it hurt, in their pocketbook, but did nothing along the same lines to the alcohol companies responsible for far, far, far more death, destruction, and mayhem through the sale and distribution of their product? Why do we have movements all over the nation to relax minor marijuana possession restrictions because it's too much work for limited law enforcement agencies to worry about? And why don't the drug users and sellers in our nation see and regret the ripple effect of their choices? Let's sentence a crack dealer to six months in the crack baby ward in a major hospital so he might see the consequences of his sales.
In any case, the bottom line on SherryBaby is that Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers a rough, tough, sexually raw performance. Her performance in Stranger Than Fiction was more appealing, nonetheless, this was an outstanding job of acting, and Ms Collyer did a great job of creating this character. Beyond that, SherryBaby is not really a very good film. The story is, with apologies to the writer, simply unoriginal and bleak, a small molecule of hope in a pound of sand at the end was not sufficiently uplifting to turn things around. Nearly everyone but Ms Gyllenhaal and Mr. Esposito seemed to be moving in belated slow motion. The film trudges along like a steam engine's first ten feet from a cold start but never finds its direction. Side characters, while occasionally well-played like Danny Trejo's Dean, add little real guidance or purpose to the picture. Most people will leave the picture thinking, "Thank goodness that's not me."
In any case, the bottom line on SherryBaby is that Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers a rough, tough, sexually raw performance. Her performance in Stranger Than Fiction was more appealing, nonetheless, this was an outstanding job of acting, and Ms Collyer did a great job of creating this character. Beyond that, SherryBaby is not really a very good film. The story is, with apologies to the writer, simply unoriginal and bleak, a small molecule of hope in a pound of sand at the end was not sufficiently uplifting to turn things around. Nearly everyone but Ms Gyllenhaal and Mr. Esposito seemed to be moving in belated slow motion. The film trudges along like a steam engine's first ten feet from a cold start but never finds its direction. Side characters, while occasionally well-played like Danny Trejo's Dean, add little real guidance or purpose to the picture. Most people will leave the picture thinking, "Thank goodness that's not me."
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
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Other Projects Featuring SherryBaby (2006)
Cast Members
Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Brad William Henke • Sam BottomsKate Burton
• Giancarlo Esposito • Ryan SimpkinsDanny Trejo
• Rio Hackford • Bridget BarkanWriter / Director
Laurie Collyer
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SherryBaby (2006) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Most of the country has had to wait far too long to get a look at what was reputed to be Maggie Gyllenhaal's Oscar®-worthy role of 2006, Sherry Swanson, in SherryBaby. The film bears a striking kinship to the 2005 similarly struggling independent Debra Granik film Down to the Bone starring Vera Farmiga. Both concern a female central character, mothers no less, with unquenchable thirsts for heavy drugs and dangerous sexual relationships. Highlighting the apparent disposability of such people in USA society, both films chronicle the challenges of getting and staying clean regardless of the compulsion to want to be a good mother for one's children. Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers a rough, tough, sexually raw performance. Beyond that, SherryBaby is not really a very good film. The story is simply unoriginal and bleak. Most people will leave the picture thinking, "Thank goodness that's not me."
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