Sherrybaby

Colour, 35 mm
USA, 2005, 92 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

Sherry Swanson, who took drugs and committed a robbery, is released from prison.The outspoken young woman is now trying to get back to ordinary life. She makes contact with her brother Bobby, who has been bringing up her daughter Alexis in the meantime, and attempts to re-establish her relationship with her little girl. For a time, it seems that she’ll be able to convince people that she can stick to her resolution and become a responsible mother. She stays off the drugs and finds a job teaching young children… But confused Alexis is still under the influence of Bobby’s wife, Lynn, who is jealous of Sherry, and the distance between the girl and her real mother starts to widen. Sherry, who has now befriended a sympathetic tough guy, is driven to despair and turns to the drugs again… According to the director, the story is inspired by the fate of a childhood friend. Sherrybaby, set in New Jersey, offers a convincing performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal in the title role and demonstrates the director’s experience as a documentary filmmaker. The film shows the mechanisms of delinquents’ return to normal society and generally explores the plight of young people who fail and later try to turn over a new leaf.

About the director

Laurie Collyer (New Jersey). Her first feature-length documentary was Nuyorican Dream (2000) about members of a Puerto Rican family in New York; the authentic testimony mapped out three years of their problematic existence and won a series of festival awards. Collyer herself wrote the screenplay for her feature debut, a successful product of the Sundance Filmmaker’s Lab, which assists in preparing the work of young filmmakers for shooting. The director chose Maggie Gyllenhaal after seeing her in the absurd love comedy Secretary. While she was getting funding together for Sherrybaby, she wrote another two scripts. She has also produced video films for fashion and Internet companies.