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A Life of Sharp Declines
The misrepresentation of addicts in film
It is August 2015 and I have just gotten out of rehab. I’m streaming Chris Rock’s Top Five, a movie I’ve been greatly looking forward to watching for months. I am surprised and delighted to see that Rock’s character in the film is a recovering alcoholic and that sober living is a hugely prevalent theme throughout the movie. I am crushed in equal measure when, after a night of tensely comedic trials and tribulations, Rock opens a beer and relapses. His relapse is not played out to disastrous effect, as even this is soon interrupted by another ridiculous situation, but I can’t help feeling deflated all the same. It’s as though the movie has personally betrayed my trust in some way.
It is a few days ago. I am watching Krisha with a knife in my chest. The movie, about a woman in recovery trying to maintain her sobriety over Thanksgiving, is a psychological drama in the severe emotional vein of something like Mysterious Skin or Oldboy, the kind of movie that practically dares you to try and make it to the end without getting a case of the shakes or reaching for a stiff drink. It is an exquisitely crafted, genuinely torturous experience. I have watched a lot of movies about drug addiction and alcoholism, and Krisha is the only one I would personally describe as “triggering.” Krisha’s relapse is one of the most…
