Sherrybaby

Though Sherrybaby is set in New Jersey, you could throw a rock almost anywhere in Butte County and be likely to hit a woman who fits the profile of the film’s title character. And that character, brilliantly played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is so fully realized that you may think you know her personally. She’s just been released from a three-year prison stint, a lanky young mother who wants to reconnect with and reclaim her 6-year-old daughter. Her brother and his wife have had custody of the girl while Sherry was doing time, and the scene depicting the moments when mother and daughter reunite for the first time is as emotionally naked as any a movie can give us. As the title suggests, Sherry is still a child herself, lacking almost everything she needs to get her daughter back. She’s immature, utterly lacking in good judgment and still not free of her overriding desire to get high. She’s not particularly likeable, but she’s so engulfed in her struggles that it is impossible not to root for her. And Laurie Collyer’s direction and the screenplay eschew all the glib “after-school special” homilies so often found in films depicting social problems.