This film screened on Wednesday 9th  January 2019.

Screening as part of First Fortnight 2019.  

A devastated father struggles to deal with his son’s debilitating addiction to methamphetamines in Belgian director Felix van Groeningen’s (The Broken Circle Breakdown, 2012) first English language film, an emotionally charged adaptation of separate memoirs written by the duo. Eighteen-year-old Nic Sheff (Timothée Chalamet) stuns his parents David (Steve Carell) and Vicki (Amy Ryan) when his experimentation with drugs lands him in rehab. The peaks and troughs of Nic’s subsequent recoveries and relapses are depicted in non-linear fashion; flashbacks to Nic’s happy childhood are poignantly juxtaposed with his spiral into addiction. Van Groeningen elicits raw performances from Carell as a father who cannot shed crippling feelings of guilt and Chalamet as an uncomprehending addict blinded to how perilous his situation has become.

The screening will be followed by a discussion.