Sherrybaby - A poignant tale about broken people

No mistake, some people may find ‘Sherrybaby’ a little difficult to watch.  But then it’s designed that way.  It covers many difficult subjects, but manages not to be gratuitous in the process.  Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the titular character, Sherry Swanson, who is released from prison and sets about trying to get her life back together and patch things up with the young daughter she lost.

However, Sherry has a few personal demons that won’t seem to let her go entirely straight.  For a start, she’s promiscuous, craves hard drugs and isn’t slow to use her fists if she thinks she will.  All in all this would normally make any ‘lead character’ pretty unlikable.  However, I think most people will still root for Sherry.  Because behind all that is a deeply troubled soul who, in her heart, is trying to do good, only her past just won’t seem to let her.

Plus Gyllenhaal plays the part with just enough balance to show Sherry’s bad and good qualities.  She’s certainly no ‘traditional’ lead character, but her frailties are there for all to see – and don’t we all have some of those?  

As the story progresses, we learn more about her past and, even though it’s not spelt out to us, can put together what made her that way.

Sherrybaby is worth seeing if you enjoy poignant film-making that really gets you to root for a damaged character and makes you want to see them succeed despite the odds.  

I won’t go into too many plot points, as I don’t want to give too much away, but, as I said earlier, it does deal with numerous ‘hard-hitting’ topics.  Just because you don’t see too much (graphically) doesn’t mean that it’s not lurking beneath the surface.

Gyllenhaal didn’t get an Oscar nod for her performance, but that doesn’t mean her portrayal wasn’t Oscar-worthy.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one