Audiences could do a lot worse than look to America’s indie cinema. Sherrybaby is a raw, painfully perceptive portrait of a young woman’s struggle to put her life back together while the spectres of a jail sentence and drug addiction are still lurking in her recent past.

It’s Maggie Gyllenhaal’s most memorable performance since Secretary. As Sherry, her vulnerability bleeds on to the screen as she tries to come to terms with the fact that her young daughter has started to call another woman “Mummy”.

The causes of Sherry’s problems are slowly revealed with all the gradual menace of a horror film.

BACKGROUND

• Sherrybaby

• She's no wallflower

A star and ‘momma-lion’

As the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal’s star continues to rise, she is fighting to protect her family’s privacy

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

Her esteem is so low that she regresses to the behaviour of an attention-seeking child with her family and uses her sexuality as her currency in her dealings with men.

With one shocking but admirably unsensational scene, the writer/director Laurie Collyer lets all the broken pieces of Sherry’s damaged psyche suddenly slot together. It’s a blisteringly powerful moment in a film that is carried by quiet, quality writing and Gyllenhaal’s performance. Just don’t expect upbeat optimism or a feelgood ending.

15, 96mins

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