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SherryBaby

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on January 3, 2008 at 14:49:20

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as a drug addicted mother of a young girl who has recently been paroled from prison, and is released to a half-way house in her hometown, and then attempts to become a "mother" to her young daughter. During her incarceration, which was three years, her daughter lived with Maggie's brother and sister-in-law, who do not have children.

The film clocks in at one and a half hours, and so it moves at a fairly brisk pace, considering the multitude of issues that the film weaves in the story, all of which the screenplay seamlessly weaves together. There is the issue of her continued sobriety, her need to obtain employment, to make her parole officer happy, her conflicts with her brother and sister, who are raising her child as their own, who do not want to loose the child, with Maggie and her brother, who is conflicted bewteen his sister and his wife. There is also the issue of her daughter who is being introduced to a mother she does not know.

Maggie Gyllenhaal turns in a spectacular performance. Because of the many variety of issues that her character confronts, he performance must range from being a tough, physical occupant of a halfway house, and conciliatory parolee, tender when trying to spend time with her daughter and convince her brother that she is clean, her attempts to remain clean, and her attitude that sometimes she must do what she can do to get a job she wants. She plays each of these roles convincingly.

I am a little familiar with drug addicts and former drug addicts as they go through and have gone through the system, loosing family and friends, only to try to get them back again, and she finds the perfect notes to express their frustrations, and the pull that their former lives have on them and where they want to go with their lives. We see and sense the conflict between her wanting to give in, and wanting to succeed for her daughter. We see the violence she is capable of, as well as the tenderness she is capable of. All without appearing she is acting. Sort of like a good speaker that does not tell us "Here is the bass, here is midrange, here is the treble." It all just blends together, but you know each of them is there, producing accurate music.

The screenplay and direction do not seek to make her a hero, or a beast, or scream for sympathy. I think a lot of productions would try to elicit sympathy, as though she is a victim of her circumstances, she needs a second chance, the beauty of the human soul, yada yada yada. This production seems to appreciate the reality that there is good and bad, and sometimes solutions are not easy as writing a happy ending. The ending is not happy. Or sad. Merely true, leaving us with the knowledge that while her train is slowed a little, it is not derailed, and there is still time to right the ship. We feel optimistic, but realize there are no free passes. Nor should there be.

Highly recommended. I have appreciated Maggie Gyllenhaal's willingness to take chances in her roles, and her risk of playing a very flawed, but, I think, decent person, should be rewarded.

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Analog Engineering Associates

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