Sherrybaby (R, 2006)

When single mom and drug addict Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) gets released from prison and is returned to her hometown, all she can think about is getting her daughter (Ryan Simpkins) back from her brother and sister-in-law who have been raising her. But after being locked up and fighting to stay sober, it's no easy task, especially when she's still haunted by the demons of a tortured childhood and by breathtaking immaturity. When she finds that her sister-in-law is coaching her daughter to call her Sherry instead of Mommy, and when she is treated badly by her father, Sherry loses it. Can she stay sober? And can she do what she needs to do to stay close to her daughter and finally learn how to be a good mother?

There's a reason Gyllenhaal was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. What starts as the depiction of a tough woman who's heavy on the sexiness grows into a complex portrait of a woman trying to learn how to live and how to recover -- not just from drugs but from lots of other things, too. You can see on Gyllenhaal's face that her Sherry is a woman with a lot of things on her mind, who's overwhelmed and in despair. That's no small thing to communicate with a look, and Gyllenhaal does it with an authenticity that's staggering.

If anyone needed a reason to stay away from drugs and alcohol, SHERRYBABY is a great example of what substance abuse, combined with self-loathing, sexism, and sexual abuse, can do to a woman's life. If there's a regret in this film, it's that Gyllenhaal's breasts are her costars. She's naked so often in this film that her natural sex appeal -- though it makes sense for the film -- runs the risk of making her sad and desperate life seem glamorous to teens unable to sense the difference.