Producer
Kerrin Sheldon
Director
Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Producer
Elaine McMillion Sheldon
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Film Details
Runtime: 89 minutes
Format: Short film
In the heart of America's opioid epidemic, four men attempt to reinvent their lives and mend broken relationships after years of drug abuse. Recovery Boys, from Academy Award nominated director Elaine McMillion Sheldon (Heroin(e)), is an intimate look at the strength, brotherhood, and courage that it takes to overcome addiction and lays bare the internal conflict of recovery. In an effort to break the cycle of generational addiction and trauma, the young men let go of painful pasts as they live in the present, and build a new community in a farming-based rehab. After rehab, they experience life's trials and tribulations sober, but struggle to find their place and purpose in an often unforgiving society. In today’s world, where shocking statistics about the opioid crisis make headlines daily, Recovery Boys gives a deeply personal look into the unseen lives of those working toward transformation.
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Reviews
The film is beautifully made: moving without being manipulative, informative without being didactic, subtly observational in the manner of great documentary filmmaking.
The heartbreaking documentary will resonate with the mass audience it deserves.
Nonetheless, the humanitarian eye of Sheldon, alongside Jacob's Ladder, implores audiences to adopt a posture of compassion and understanding, because the struggle an addict faces is a deepening one.
It's a powerful indictment: not only of hostility toward drug users, but also of toxic masculine molds that command men against seeking help, relief, and love.
Sheldon paints a stark picture of the harsh reality of recovery in her sensitive, and life-affirming documentary
Accomplished without exaggeration and putting additional faces onto oft-stereotyped members of America, making them multi-faceted men and bursting through backwoods hillbilly convention. The immediate social impression of Recovery Boys is tremendous.
It can be devastating at times, but you won't feel like it was time ill spent.
A moving yet cautionary tale and a painful reminder that recovery is a journey that never really ends.
Forget our society's current obsession with superheroes: this is the conflict of which powerful drama is made.
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