2006 ROUNDUP: SHERRYBABY (Collyer)

The night before last I watched APOCALYPSE NOW, and last night I watched SHERRYBABY. They're very different films in many regards, but they also share a couple of things in common. For one thing, they both feature Sam Bottoms. For another, they both, at first glance, seem to be about Important Things, but, by the time we reach the end, turn out to be about people instead. And most glaringly, both films give us people pushed to their absolute limits, and lets us watch as their ends showly fray and they cope the only way they know how.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is Sherry, just out of prison, three years clean from heroin, and left to reside in a women's halfway home. Given the set up, one might initially think of this as a Lifetime movie, but it quickly becomes clear that what you're going to be viewing is a totally different breed of animal. SHERRYBABY is not truly about drug addiction or the things that lead people to seek comfort therein. It is rather about Sherry herself and how her addiction affects her. It is very much a character study, and a wholly unsettling one at that. It becomes clear early on that Sherry is not seeking redemption and that it is not going to be coming to her. She never seems to give up expecting it, however, which is perhaps the film's saddest quality. Sherry expects her five year old daughter to love and admire her, despite the fact that she has been incarcerated for half of her life. She expects to get a job working with children, despite the fact that she is a convicted felon. (She does manage to get a gig working at a daycare center for urban youth, but only after blowing the intake director. The theme of the use of sex to achieve her own ends flows throughout all of the film, and presents us with questions about who is using who.) She expects to remain clean and for her PO to cut her breaks. But as the PO himself says, Sherry does not want to put in the work.

SHERRYBABY is a heartbreaking, emotionally devastating film that never gives us a glimmer of hope, never gives us any reason to believe that things are going to get better. It is not a picture about beginnings and ends, but rather the dull monotony and bleak self-analysis that makes up the majority of our days. There's a lot more to consider here, including whether or not Sherry is sympathetic (I think she is) and what tone the film wants to close on (I want to think it's hopefuly, but I know better). But like Sherry and the film about her, this review is going to remain incomplete, unfinished, because beauty exists in the imperfect, if you're willing to look for it. SHERRYBABY is not for everyone, but it is a film that everyone should see.