Tag Archives: addiction recovery

Mar 30

“Krisha”: A Family-Affair Addiction Story

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If Krisha’s about more than just putting its audience through one woman’s crucible of atonement, it may be about the limits of forgiveness. How many second chances does a loved one get, especially when they refuse to either change or explain their behavior? Because we share her perspective, it’s easy to feel sympathy for Krisha, fighting for the affection and respect of a family she bailed on. But that doesn’t mean we have to ultimately cave to her emotional appeals. That might be the movie’s most powerful achievement: It literally puts us on its protagonist’s side, then dares us not to abandon it for the other one. A.A. Dowd, AV Club

Indie film Krisha is a family affair in more than one way. First, of course, there’s the (somewhat fictional) family whose story it tells. Key words from various review headlines signal what lies in wait: black sheep, recovering alcoholic, dysfunctional clan, grueling reunion, emotional horror show of a family, not your ordinary family-holiday psychodrama.

Second, many of the cast are in fact family. Title character Krisha, in her 60’s, is played by the now highly lauded non-actor Krisha Fairchild, the aunt of the film’s writer/director Trey Edward Shults. Also featured in key roles are Trey’s mother (Robyn Fairchild) as his aunt, Trey as himself, and his grandmother (Billie Fairchild).

A couple other interesting facts: Krisha’s character is based on actual kin (though presumably not anyone who’s in the film), and both Trey’s mom and dad happen to be therapists in real life. But as Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, reassures, “…(T)his is more than a writer-director’s therapy session in the guise of a narrative.”

The setting is Robyn’s home in Austin, TX, at Thanksgiving. Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter: “Within the bustling home…relationships gradually come into focus. Key among them for Krisha is her strained connection with her son. Well played by the director, Trey is adamantly closed off to her, especially when she tries to bridge the gap.”

Tricia Olszewski, The Wrap:

…(H)er extended family is huge, including a few 20-something guys, two brothers-in-law, an infant, and her Alzheimer’s-afflicted [for real] mom…

Despite telling herself to ‘chill,’ Krisha, a clearly deeply wounded woman who claims to be a former alcoholic, becomes increasingly anxious and returns to her guest bathroom frequently to pop pills and eventually chug some wine. ‘She’s a little jumpy,’ someone explains. ‘She lives by herself.’

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: “You know, watching, that Krisha — nerve-racked, heavily medicated, aware she’s on eggshells — will eventually be at the center of a disaster…And you know that when it all goes down it’s going to hurt.”

On Krisha Succeeding As a Family Drama and Not Being a “Therapy Session”

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter: “…Shults never indulges in therapy-speak; whether angry, sorrowful, deceitful or confessional, each word is alive, not designed to deliver a message.”

Justin Chang, Variety: “Remarkably…the film sustains its intense commitment to emotional and psychological realism even as everything goes to hell.”

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: “Such aversion to easy psychoanalysis is one way that the film avoids becoming a generic recovery drama, even after an element of addiction is introduced. Intangible cast chemistry is another.”

The trailer’s below:

Mar 27

“Postcards from the Edge”: An Addict Always Has Enablers

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Postcards From the Edge, a 1990 comedy adapted from the semi-autobiographical novel by Carrie Fisher, features Meryl Streep as Suzanne, an actress struggling with drug abuse. We can only imagine Suzanne’s pre-rehab experiences with her presumed enablers, as the movie deals more with post-rehab.

But the movie does start us out with a bit of rehab—which Suzanne has more than earned. One of Suzanne’s best and most-quoted lines: “Instant gratification takes too long.”

Vincent Canby, reviewer for the New York Times, notes about Suzanne’s treatment:

Suzanne doesn’t minimize her predicament, but she can’t help standing a bit outside it. When a therapist suggests that a group encounter session be ended so the patients can visit with their ‘significant others,’ Suzanne wants to know why everyone has to talk in bumper stickers.

When she’s discharged and finds out that she has to live with her mom Doris (Shirley MacLaine) in order to keep her current film-acting job, she’s deeply chagrined. Much of the ensuing plot is about the strained mother-daughter relationship, in fact.

Doris drinks problematically, although she denies being an alcoholic: “I just drink like an Irish person.” A well-known entertainer herself, Doris is also self-absorbed, controlling, and overshadowing of her daughter.

Postcards From the Edge offers glimpses of some common intergenerational family dynamics of an addict. We find out, for example, that Doris started giving Suzanne over-the-counter sleeping pills regularly when she was only nine years old—a great way to set up eventual addiction issues in one’s offspring. And when we meet “Grandma,” Doris’s mom, it becomes pretty clear how Doris became the parent she is.

The review from Variety concludes that this movie “(p)acks a fair amount of emotional wallop in its dark-hued comic take on a chemically dependent Hollywood mother and daughter.” If you want more depth, however, you might actually prefer the novel. It’s a quick, witty read that gives us additional info about Suzanne’s rehab and therapy.

Roger Ebert agrees in wishing the film had gone deeper on the issue of addiction recovery. “Half the people in Hollywood seem to have gone through recovery from drugs and alcohol by now. And yet no one seems able to make a movie that’s really about the subject. Do they think it wouldn’t be interesting? Any movie that cares deeply about itself – even a comedy – is interesting. It’s the movies that lack the courage of their convictions, the ones that keep asking themselves what the audience wants, that go astray.”