Dir. Shane Brady (2022)
An addict celebrates his one year anniversary alone, but he must fight all of his demons to remain sober.
CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Holy hell, what a movie. This one wasn’t horror, or even horror-adjacent, but was a straight up drama, so I’ll keep this review relatively short. I would normally not review a movie like this on my site at all, but I felt it was important to give this movie a little bit of love because it is phenomenal. I haven’t seen an indie movie, maybe ever, that made me feel like this one. The acting is more than top-notch. Writer/director Shane Brady played Dylan, the lead role, and he was absolutely outstanding. Most films that were written, directed, and edited by the same person who stars in the film are not even close to good, but Brady kills all of these roles in a way that I don’t know that I’ve ever seen. The movie is about addiction, the person that you are, the person that you were, and the person you could still become. As someone whose family has been touched by addiction (and whose hasn’t?), it hit home.
The film is absolutely tremendous. Every role is played with the utmost sincerity, and the actors playing Dylan’s family (Katelyn Nacon and Augie Duke as his sisters and June Carryl as his adopted mother) are chef’s kiss perfection. The movie is trippy as all hell, but even those parts have ridiculously good voice acting. It uses humor like a cudgel, battering its audience during periods where we don’t quite know what to think but we know we are going to be devastated by what’s revealed. Ultimately, that’s what this movie is: it’s about the parts of ourselves that are only revealed at our darkest points, the pieces of us that are missing because of trauma and poor choices. Dylan has lived a rough life, and the empathy that we eventually give him does not belie the truth spoken by his sisters, that these were all his choices and he’s an addict, not a cancer patient.
It’s an outstanding watch, and I cannot recommend it enough. Kudos to Brady, who did a truly incredible job all around.
Who this movie is for: Drama aficionados, The families of addicts, Pill pushers
Bottom line: This is a movie that should be required viewing in rehab. What an extraordinary film. It would not surprise me a bit if Brady becomes the next Big Thing, because every part he plays in the making of this film is just transcendent. If you get a chance to watch this movie, please do so. If you can’t find it, seek it out. It’s worth watching, and it’s one of my favorite movies of the year
