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Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 20 Ratings

  • Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Bottoms
  • Summary: Three years after entering prison for robbery as a 19-year-old heroin addict, Sherry Swanson (Gyllenhaal) begins her first day of freedom, clean and sober. A model prisoner who has undergone personal transformation, she immediately sets out to regain custody of her young daughter Alexis. (IFC Films) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 18
  2. Negative: 1 out of 18
  1. Maggie Gyllenhaal is such a miracle of an actress that she makes you respond to the innocence of Sherry's desperate, selfish destruction.
  2. Reviewed by: Duane Byrge
    80
    Buoyed by Gyllenhaal's hauntingly complex portrait of the vivacious but addictive Sherry, the film is no mere by-the-numbers chronology of addiction. Gyllenhaal's sympathetic and charismatic performance binds us to the horror of Sherry's personal demons.
  3. 50
    Sherrybaby is the kind of pretend-arty Sundance thing that gives indie cinema a bad name.
  4. Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    25
    A movie bursting with nothingness.

See all 18 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 13
  2. Negative: 1 out of 13
  1. LeeA.
    10
    Trejo was pitch perfect. Esposito about as authentic as his turn in, "The Wire." Gyllenhaal...what better to say than her performance was not like watching a consummate actor; it was like observing the real thing. As for Collyer's script: she's either a 12 stepper, or one terrifically objective and, ( in this sense, could this be an oxymron??, ) "sympathetic" medium. Expand
  2. HansB.
    8
    Maggie was fanstastic (10). The story was so so (6) --> 8.
  3. ChadS.
    7
    Even the seemingly no-nonsense parole officer (Giancarlo Esposito) isn't impervious to the feminine wiles of a misunderstood strumpet. Officer Hernandez, whose bark is worse than his bite, grants Sherry(Maggie Gyllenhall) the special privilege of seeing her daughter. The affectionate appendage "baby" is sublimated in this kind act, this favor to a lost soul, which no doubt originated from somewhere south of his heart. When we meet a certain family member, we know in an instant who first called her "baby", and subjected her to objectification. This inappropriate relationship helps explain why Bobby (Brad William Henke) doesn't quite know how to hug his sister(see how her hesitates during their first meeting). "Sherrybaby" avoids the cliched response to the cliche that explains why a woman is promiscuous. The film avoids that big weepy moment when the woman guilt-trips the passive bystander to her historical victimization, which normally should be a sign of mature filmmaking; but here, it seems like a contradiction to Sherry's fiery nature. Gyllenhaal doesn't have to unleash hell against her brother at the diner, but a little heck would've been more satisfactory than what actually transpires in what should've been the film's pivotal moment. Obviously, Sherry should let her daughter be, but she's a mother; not a mother******. You shouldn't hate her for caring too much. It's the latter type, the woman who never returns to reclaim her namesake, you should deride and villify. Expand
  4. Meghan
    3
    Overrated. Vulgar for the sake of jusy being vulgar because it's an "independent film" and they feel that they can could get away with it. Magge G did nothing but whine her way through it. Questions were left unanswered. Thoroughly disappointing. I wish they had just stayed with the mother daughter aspect of the film instead of constantly going to the sex aspect of the film. Expand

See all 13 User Reviews

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