Sherrybaby
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Movie Reviews of Sherrybaby
Movie Review: EXCELLENT
Summary: 5 Stars
I FOUND THIS MOVIE TO BE INTERESTING AND SAD. AS A MOTHER MYSELF, I COULD NT IMAGINE LOSING MY CHILDREN TO DRUGS AND HAVING SOMEONE ELSE RAISE THEM. THE MAIN STAR IN THIS FILM WAS VERY WEAK, SHE GAVE IN TOO EASY TO HER ADDICTION, AND FOUND THAT SHE COULDNT RAISE HER CHILD ON HER OWN, IT WAS TOO HARD FOR HER, SHE ADMITTED TO NEEDING HELP, HOPEFULLY IN THE END SHE GOT IT.Movie Review: Maggie IS sherrybaby
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a movie I had viewed prior to purchasing it. It struck such a chord that I could not get it out of my mind; I knew I had to have it! Maggie G. is superb in her role, much better actress than I knew.Movie Review: No pain, no gain...
Summary: 4 Stars
A little more honest than I expected, `Sherrybaby' really delivers a severe punch to the gut thanks to a daring performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The film tells the story of Sherry Swanson, a former wild child who was just released from prison after serving a three-year stint for stealing and drug use. She has tight rules to follow in order to ensure her freedom, but her main concern is her young daughter Alexis. Alexis has been living with Sherry's brother Bobby and his wife Lynette for the entirety of Sherry's jail-stay, and now that she is out there is an obvious tension mounting between the three of them. Sherry wants to take over instantaneously as a mother, yet she's never really been one and so making that transition is difficult. As the pressure begins to suffocate her, she begins to crave her former life as a way to escape the inevitable.
Has she really learned her lesson?
The film is certainly flawed in areas, and there are times when the construction can seem almost `Lifetime' worthy, but the deeply rooted performances and the scripts ability to remain honest without being preachy (there are insinuations that help explain Sherry's behavior without ever feeling the need to divulge the truth, which is commendable because it allows the audience to think for themselves instead of spoon feeding them sympathies) anchors the film rather well. I will admit that the film has us sympathize with Sherry a little too much. While it brings itself back in towards the end (when we witness Sherry realize her own faults), it lacks an objectivity that I think would have made this film nearly perfect. Despite the brilliant way in which Maggie exposes Sherry's selfishness, we tend to see everything as Sherry sees it, and so we stand firmly at her side, and technically she doesn't deserve that from us; at least not yet.
The performances here are all so richly developed. If you sidestep Lynette's character (which is really nothing but a walking cliché) and the truly unnecessary love interest (for me, it totally takes away from the film in an odd way) you have a deeply moving look at a broken family. Sam Bottoms, Brad William Henke and Maggie Gyllenhaal are all superb here. Sam Bottoms only has a few scenes (two I think), but he works an uncomfortable subtlety into his character that really underlines his serious flaws without making them the forefront of the scene. In fact, this film carries with it an uncomfortable subtlety that really helps make it feel more human. I loved what Henke did with his character, maybe because I've lived it and so I completely sympathize with his position. Being stuck between your wife and her opinions and your blood and their mistakes is a very hard place to be, and despite your own emotions, you can continually feel neglected because everyone around you is selfishly expecting you to be 100% on their side.
And then there is Maggie. The way she crafted this character, with such daring and fearless gusto (yet always maintaining the discomfort that comes from realizing you are a train wreck) is just superb. She permeates each scene with a radiance that draws you to her. There is this beautiful honesty that comes from the tragedy she unfolds before us. Just watch her eyes while others are talking to her. Gyllenhall understood that Sherry needed to be faulty, yet she needed to be honest. She's honest to a fault. She craves everything she feels as though she lost while locked away, and she wants it right now. Her dinner scene, the singing scene, to me was the most raw and personal because you could see a desperation to be loved and noticed that just bled into her every word. The way she bounces on the sofa when the family seems to be ignoring her. She needs to be at the center of everyone's lives because she needs to be sure that they love her.
So, I do recommend this film. It needed a little polishing, but it is far more honest than I expected. It reminds me a tad of `Rachel Getting Married'. The two films are very different in structure but they carry a similar weight and they craft a similar portrait of a young woman trying to atone for her past mistakes.
Watch them both.
Movie Review: Maggie Gyllenhaal shines in Sherrybaby.
Summary: 4 Stars
Out of prison, clean at last, Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) dreams of being a mother to daughter Alexis, who has spent the last three years with her brother and sister-in-law. Sherry was arrested on drug possession charges, her drug of choice being heroine. Now she confronts her demons in the form of family....sister-in-law Lynnette has bonded with the young girl, and has postponed her own family to raise her. How can Lynnette reconcile giving up her care to the fragile, emotionally shattered Sherry?
Moving from man to man and trying to erase her memories of life with her own father, Sherry is a selfish and childish shell of what she might have been, who can only relate to men on the basis of her sexuality. She couples with the manager of a half-way house, finds a troubled partner from her days as a stripper, and tries to seduce her parole officer (Giancarlo Esposito in a wonderfully understated role on the big screen...you remember his intensity from television's "Homicide"). A meeting with her father results in a reinforcement of this childlike behavior. The film is a frank and seamless report of Sherry's encounters with life, bouncing off the bad times without learning from them and continuing on in a subtle dance of drifting from place to place, of living with life without coping or facing down your own issues.
The encounters that Sherry wants the most, the times she gets to be with Alexis, don't go well; Alexis is uncomfortable, a little defiant, afraid. As Sherry begins to realize that what she hoped for, what she left her addiction for, what she focused on in prison...the relationship with her daughter is almost impossible to repair, she begins the slow spiral downhill of giving up on herself. Cheap and brassy, surrounded by a gritty, realistic portrayal of the surroundings of the worst of New Jersey, Maggie Gyllenhaal as a bottle blonde is incredibly believable as Sherry. You sense her vulnerability, you are drawn to her charisma, but ultimately, you are repulsed by her behavior and afraid to believe in her. She doesn't believe in herself, after all. The breathless waiting you have for Sherry to give up on herself, to return to her destructive self, to feed her demons, creates suspense in the film.
Laurie Collyer directs a character study of Gyllenhaal's challenge with real life and backs it up with tight, focused camera shots of Sherry from every angle, revealing her inner thoughts, with the contrast of middle class New Jersey and the ugly, dirty streets available to ex-cons. She sets the mood with the music and tries hard to present Sherry's tale as a feature film; but it disintegrates into more of a documentary as Collyer lets the tale meander and repeat itself through Sherry's ups and downs - there is no clarity to the point that is being made. The film becomes a showcase for the central performance.
Gyllenhaal, who opened my eyes with her work in "The Secretary", chose the role in character with what she consistently presents on the screen - her ability to inhabit the character. Contrary to most actresses of her generation, Gyllenhaal is not afraid to make unique choices and to build her reputation as an actress to be reckoned with. In "Sherrybaby", a film that was less than a critical success, that went almost directly to video, she shows that she can carry a film, and doubtless will reap the rewards of better and better scripts in upcoming years. She is marvelous here.
The film is less so, but still worth a view. Don't buy the DVD for the extras, there are none - it is a stripped down version designed to allow the public to experience Gyllehaal's performance, ashamedly at award season.
Movie Review: To Call Her a Fearless Actress Is An Understatement
Summary: 4 Stars
Unflinchingly absorbing from the first scene to the last, Maggie Gyllenhaal brings a candid, earthy aura to "Sherrybaby," her most impressive acting vehicle up to this point. New to DVD, this gut-wrenching look at an ex-convict's struggle to establish control over her life truly sizzles.
Any doubt of Gyllenhaal's abilities is erased only minutes into the film. At the drop of a hat, she makes Sherry Swanson turn from sexual to vulnerable, violent to passive, indifferent to invested, self-assured to insecure. Through it all, she is endearing enough to win over even the most ignorant viewers - the kind who shield their eyes when real-life Sherrys pass them on the street.
When we first meet her, she saunters off the bus in Newark, finally home after three years in prison. Contrasting with the business suits that surround her skimpy strawberry blonde get-up, she hollers after a man merely for brushing against her in a hurry to cross the street; the unfolding of a misfit begins.
Parole Officer Hernandez is played by the ever-brilliant Giancarlo Esposito, who has a knack for playing deceivingly straightforward authority figures. Appropriately hard-headed in his treatment of Sherry yet sympathetic to her misfortune, his character provides a three-dimensional look at the work of those who look after prisoners post-incarceration.
Sherry's heart-rending yet uneasy reunion with her tiny daughter Alexis, portrayed by Ryan Simpkins, sets the stage for the crux of the plot. Having been raised during her mother's incarceration by Sherry's brother Bobby and his wife Lynette, played by Brad William Henke and Bridget Barkan, Alexis is thrown a curveball when her mother suddenly arrives. With an ability to act natural on screen, Simpkins makes Alexis a fully realized character despite her extreme youth, underscoring key plot elements with a pure, uncensored nature par for the course in young children.
Fully intent on being a better mother, Sherry collides with her brother and sister-in-law, who closely regulate her interactions with Alexis out of legitimate concern. When she realizes they have instructed Alexis to address her not as "mommy" but as simply Sherry, tremendous tension ensues, finally ballooning out of control. Sensing the tension between the three adults, the toddler breaks down in tears, unsure of her position at an age when it is all she has to rely on. The juxtaposition of Sherry's urban life with her family's quiet existence in suburban Mountainside underscores their inevitable differences.
Dominant male figures are perhaps overly important to Sherry's definition of herself. Her relationship with her father, wisely underplayed by Sam Bottoms, is more pivotal than first meets the eye, providing context for her conflicted past. She also develops a relationship with recovered addict Dean, played by Danny Trejo, who becomes an unlikely anchor with his wizened, world-weary outlook.
It's easy to dismiss Sherry as someone who is raunchy and immoral, but an attentive viewing reveals the reasons behind her complexities. Gyllenhaal draws her character like an artist draws a painting, giving her depth and dimension that takes the viewer deeper and deeper in as the plot progresses. To call her a fearless actress would be an understatement.
Gyllenhaal fronts a top-notch cast in this gritty, unglamorous slice of life. For powerful acting, an engrossing story and wall-to-wall on-location shots of New Jersey to boot, "Sherrybaby" delivers the goods hand over fist.