Sherrybaby 2006

While other starlets flitted in and out of rehab for real, Maggie Gyllenhaal earned an Oscar nomination for this phenomenal portrait of a recovering junkie who is determined to win back her daughter after three years in jail.

“From the opening of the movie, she has you hanging on her every word and gesture. Blond and beaming, she speaks in a slack, dazed little-girl voice – the sound of a burnout looking for the next sensation – that makes her sullen sexuality seem an eruption from within. Sherry believes in her willowy body and not much else. She’s a cherry- bomb hellion who never grew up; she wants and wants, and gives too little in return. Yet Gyllenhaal is such a miracle of an actress that she makes you respond to the innocence of Sherry’s desperate, selfish destruction. I was gripped by the way she holds a cigarette… and by the way her head dips slightly, with sulky sensuality, like something out of an old Cyndi Lauper video. You may not like the character… yet your heart opens up and bleeds for her.” — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly