Dennings takes on the role of Renee Yohe (a depressed 19-year-old with substance abuse problems) and does it flawlessly. She perfectly depicts a young woman who never quite feels like she's winning. From the minute you see her on screen she grabs hold of you and takes you on her journey. The movie is colorful and vibrant at first, then becomes dark and cold. Renee pushes her family and friends away after a rave her and said friends (Jessie and Dylan) attend. Things to down hill for Renee after and two years later they reconnect and try to get her help. After 5 days of detox, she's submitted into rehab. Now, once she gets out she soon discovers she's still "messed up" and has a drawback. One day at a time is what she's told to do. This movie is wonderfully done. It brings awareness and light to an audience that might not know a lot about this topic. Through her personal struggles, the foundation To Write Love on Her Arms was made to help people going through similar things know they're not alone.

All her life, Renee Yohe was a dreamer. Until life took away her dreams. Caught up in the mid-Florida drug world, she reconnects with her friends whom she left two years ago, asking for help to overcome her struggles. What she doesn't know is that her story would provide hope for people like her around the world.This film is a perfect depiction of what really goes down, and how rehab really goes. Throughout her entire career, Kat Dennings (Renee) has always played sarcastic, hilarious characters. And one of the truly serious roles in her career, she nails. I'm surprised she wasn't given at least a nod from the Academy for Best Actress.Everybody's performances to couple with hers give the whole movie a sense of solid tangibility, as a BOATS (Based On A True Story) feature should. To think that one woman, whose story we've heard a million times, would inspire a non-profit organization that shares the same name as the movie, motivating depressed, addicted, and even suicidal young adults to never give up, because Renee didn't.This movie should have won awards across the board, but even though it didn't, it shows that anything is possible when you ask for help. A definite must-see

If you are expecting an intense Hollywood drama about a young woman's struggle with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide then don't watch this movie. This is not a Hollywood movie but the story of how Renee Yohe fell to rock bottom, and more importantly how five friends supported her through her five days of detox. In fact, it was independently produced and picked up by Sony for film distribution purposes.After those five days she entered detox, and as a way to pay for her treatment and recovery her story was wrote by Jamie Tworkowski, a friend who had stayed with her during those five days. They sold shirts on Myspace that funded her treatment. That publishing of the story and creation of the Myspace page led to millions of people discovering the origination and sharing their own stories.I would like to share is that this is not a religious movie, though there are scenes in this movie that portray forms of Christianity. Those scenes are important to the lives of Renee Yohe and Jamie Tworkowski, because they play a part not only in the original story but in their personal lives as well. I have been a supporter of the organization for quite some time now, and although some individuals in the organization have religious beliefs the organization does not push people towards religion, but rather provide a gap between awareness and recovery. A large portion of their funds are donated to recovery programs.The last thing that I would like to say, as another user commented to say it was, this is not a drug propaganda movie, nor any other type of propaganda. It reflects the beliefs of the organization that treatment and recovery are very real and possible options, and that hope is real.This is part of a girl's life and story that has changed the life of so many other people.

2 of 10. This is the worst kind of war on drugs propaganda and film. It feels like you're watching something quickly scrambled together to show on TV with the intent of persuading young people that drugs are bad, only used by "messed up" people, and you can only be good again by rehabbing with baby-Jesus.Leading the way is Kat Dennings, who is the poster actress for grunge/goth/outsider posers. Add to that a collection of desperate actors and actresses hoping for a break or a paycheck and you get nothing worth watching other than the irony of their story not telling what they try to force it to tell via one last end-of-film gimmick.The only thing I'll be writing love to after watching this is the programmer who made increased playback speeds possible so I could get this film over without sacrificing too much of my life.