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Fantastic!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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.

If nothing else, "Sherrybaby" is a fine vehicle for the talented Maggie Gyllenhaal, who's memorable in the role of a (supposedly) recovered drug addict and former jailbird who's now out on parole. Sherry is released into a society where she often feels ill equipped to cope, and does the best she can, even if that means giving a man a sexual favour in return for a good job prospect. Key to the success of the film is certainly Gyllenhaal. Sherry may not always be terribly sympathetic, but you do root for her to a certain extent due mainly to Gyllenhaals' riveting, realistic performance.Sherry finds that life outside prison walls is hard to get used to. Her daughter Alexis (adorable Ryan Simpkins) is now being raised by her brother Bobby (Brad William Henke) and his wife Lynette (Bridget Barkan). Sherry finds that reconnecting with her little girl is difficult as Alexis sees her mom as practically a stranger and Lynette actually encourages the child to address Sherry by her name and not as "Mommy". These and other circumstances are now things that Sherry must deal with as she readjusts to "normal" life.Writer / director Laurie Collyer refrains from ever getting *too* maudlin or melodramatic, which does help matters. Overall the story is not completely satisfying - too much remains to be dealt with - but at least we do get a sense by the conclusion that Sherry is going to be making more of an honest effort from now on. Gyllenhaal is very well supported by a strong cast that also includes Giancarlo Esposito as a tough parole officer, Sam Bottoms as Sherry's father, Kate Burton as the fathers' wife, and Danny Trejo, veteran of bad ass roles, who shows more sensitivity and depth in a change of pace part.Overall, a reasonably engaging indie drama that does have its heart in the right place.Seven out of 10.

The title says it all - Sherry is a young woman who still in many ways acts like a child. She has had an unfortunate start to her life which culminated with her becoming a single mother saddled with a drug habit she could not support financially that inevitably led to her appearing in Court for petty theft. She received quite a long jail sentence and the film opens when she had served enough of this to be released on probation. We quickly appreciate that her problems largely resulted from immaturity which was mainly a consequence of her home upbringing rather than due to any basic character fault of her own. She was released with a very good prison record after making a real attempt to rehabilitate herself; with the one unwavering objective of getting re-united with her daughter Alexis, now living with her brother and his wife, as quickly as possible. But we also appreciate that she is far from mature (even though not quite a baby) and will have difficulty finding a successful way forward on her own in our complex modern society. It looks long odds that before long she will revert to using drugs again and will be back where she was when she first became entangled with the law. This film is a real tearjerker - Sherry is played as an immature character with whom one can sympathise; so when the film bluntly shows the problems such an individual faces, and we watch the many blows that life outside prison is inflicting on her, we have imminent expectations of seeing a final blow which will overwhelm her and lead to her return to prison with the prospect of no more than an unfulfilled lifetime of petty crime in front of her.This expected ending might be a route for achieving an art-house film award, but the scriptwriter and director clearly recognised it would not be likely to to lead to box office success, particularly as the story is filmed in a totally non-judgmental style so that it screens almost like a documentary crying out for a final resolution. However Sherry's battle for acceptance and respect will clearly be a long one and any quick definitive ending which implied the end of Sherry's problems would be artistically unrealistic. Instead the film wisely ends at one significant staging point in her long struggle. (SPOILER AHEAD} Her brother, although anxious to give her his full help and support, is unable to do so effectively whilst she continues to believe all her problems result directly from the unjustified suspicions of her contemporaries. Eventually this dichotomy drives her back to heroin again, but she bravely pulls up short, recognising both that there were legitimate fears on the part of her so-called friends, and that she needs more help if she is to finally develop a lifestyle acceptable to those among whom she is living. The film ends with her going into a detox centre, but before doing so she returns to her brother to accept the offer of help she had been rejecting before . We know she will still have many battles ahead of her, but at this point she has won the first and greatest of them; and she now has a real chance to eventually become fully reintegrated into her community. We wish her well as the film ends at what would otherwise have been a very uncertain point. Although simple, in my experience such an ending is unusually realistic for films dealing with this type of subject matter.Without the truly outstanding performance by Molly Gyllenhaal as Sherry this film would provide very flat viewing, like a rather sterile documentary intended to make us more sympathetic to those who have stumbled along the wayside, but not really involving our emotions. Molly has lifted it well above this level and most of the other performances (including that of the young actress who played her daughter) are also excellent. Some IMDb users have said that they do not care for her acting, but her award winning portrayal of Sherry has been acclaimed by so many critics and viewers that all I need add is the recommendation - If you have not already seen this film, find a copy of the DVD as soon as you can.7 Stars

Once more Maggie Gyllenhaal has done an impressive performance for SherryBaby, in fact she is the one that power the movie all the time.This film is about the life of one ex-prisoner that leaves jail with only one thing of mind, reunite with her daughther. Maggie Gyllenhaa is not a one of this ficcion-prisoner-mother, Laurie Collyer did a very good job writing the movie looking at the current situation and I think he reaches the target by showing a yound mother has been kept in jail because she was a kind of next-door-drugdealer.The film itself is a day to day after prison, and how this skinny girl try her best to get what she wants but always finding some one infront of her. She doesn't like to break the rules, but she doesn't understand why they there.The film will keep you in the seat all the time, I promise.