Sherrybaby: Movie & DVD Review (2007)

(Originally published 2007)

Laurie Collyer's "Sherrybaby" stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as an ex-con and recovering heroin addict struggling to put her life together in spite a self-destructive streak threatening to knock her down.

From Collyer’s own script, the film features Gyllenhaal in a performance that's as raw and as affecting as Ryan Gosling’s Academy Award-nominated turn in “Half Nelson,” in which he played a middle-school teacher also brought down by drugs.

“Sherrybaby” is more content to ride the rails of formula, but not sentiment, which it resists, likely because Collyer is best known as a documentarian. Following suit, her movie has a charged air of edgy realism, with Gyllenhaal's intense portrayal as Sherry Swanson key to achieving that end.

Much of the movie is a balancing act, with Sherry trying to stay clean while finding a job (she lands one at a day care, though through questionable means) and attempting to reconnect with her young daughter, Alexis (Ryan Simpkins), who has been raised for the past three years by Sherry's brother, Bobby (Brad Henke), and sister-in-law, Lynette (Bridget Barkan). Lynette doesn't want to let go of Alexis, which creates a tense struggle of wills between herself and Sherry that's heightened because of all they leave unsaid.

This is, after all, a family that buries its emotions, which is underscored in a subplot involving Sherry's father (Sam Bottoms). While there's nothing new in the layers of dysfunction the movie peels away, there's nevertheless something exciting in the fearlessness with which Gyllenhaal tackles the role--she’s unhinged. Her power comes from Sherry's biting silences; she can dismantle you with a stare. And yet as tough as Sherry is in some scenes, her failing battle with addiction and the love she fears her daughter won't return to her complicates her character and the movie admirably.

Just as she did in the dark, sadomasochistic comedy “Secretary,” Gyllenhaal raises her share of eyebrows here, though for a whole host of different reasons.

Grade: B+