Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a recovering addict after serving prison time. She is placed in a halfway house and desperate to reconnect with her daughter who is living with her brother's family. She is perfectly willing to exchange sex for favors. She befriends Dean Walker (Danny Trejo) from the recovery meeting who recognizes her as a stripper. There is hostilities at the halfway house and she stays at her brother's home. It doesn't go well and she starts using again. Parole Officer Hernandez (Giancarlo Esposito) threatens her with prison time if she doesn't go back to treatment.Maggie Gyllenhaal is great but Sherry is not terribly likable. She's a self-destructive addict who is a danger to her daughter. It's not until the bitter end that her self-obsessed destruction clears up. It would be better for her to build some more sympathy early on. It is still a devastating performance.

This movie paved a new road to a previously unknown art form. Something I've never seen before on screen, or in real life.As many have pointed out - it has sub par acting, poor script writing and looks as if it was directed by a high school media student who gets bad grades. But that's all been done before.There was one thing that this movie had that no other movie before ever had. That is, the art of audible smoking.I've known a lot of smokers over the years, both male and female, young and old. And I've never seen (or should I say heard) any of them smoke the way the lead "actress" of this film does. This audible smoking technique runs throughout the film, but the most notable example is the scene in her brother's kitchen where she is standing in front of the wall phone.There's the loud inhale, a brief pause, and then the louder exhale carefully skewing the mouth sideways so as not to blow smoke at the cameraman.Another example is when the biker enters her room. Once again, the loud inhale, a brief pause and then the louder sideways exhale.I've been on earth for over half a decade. Like I said, I've known a lot of smokers. But I've never seen or heard any of them smoke like this.

Wow, Maggie Gyllenhaal is absolutely brilliant in this as an ex-junkie who upon release from jail tries to turn her life around and get custody of her young daughter that barely knows her.Sherrybaby is a gritty, unflinching indie film that surprised me. For the most part its an emotional character study, with interesting hints of abuse from the father and all-round messed up family relationships.But there are just so many layers to this movie that wouldn't have been visible without Maggie G's stellar performance. I also enjoyed seeing another side of Danny Trejo who doesn't just "machete" stuff, he can really act. Always good to see Giancarlo Esposito from (Breaking Bad) as well. 10.13

Sherry Swanson is on probation having served 3 years for theft to pay for her heroin habit. While in prison she has cleaned up and taken various self-improvement courses. Now all she wants is to be reunited with her small daughter who has been looked after by her brother and his wife while she has been inside. But life outside is not as easy as she hoped it would be.Sherry's progress is always interesting, though somewhat depressing - you can see that she is a fundamentally decent person, but her history as a heroin addict and jailbird means that no-one, including her family, fully trusts her. You spend the film hoping that she will find a successful route through the many, many difficulties which face her (including the ever present possibility of slipping back into old ways) while, at the same time, thinking that a glib Hollywood happy ending would be a betrayal of the gritty integrity of this story. It is to the film's credit that it avoids both of these alternatives.While the supporting cast are all very good, this is Maggie Gyllenhaal's film - she delivers a wholly credible Sherry, flawed but fighting not only what everyone else throws at her, but herself too.And it's worth mentioning Danny Trejo - playing against type, but truer to his real-life persona.A challenging but worthwhile film.