Having recently lost his father, 17-year-old Andrew Eriksen (Monty Lapica) lives on the outskirts of Los Vegas with his distraught mother Louise (Diane Venora). Once a bright and promising student with the world seemingly at his fingertips, the youngster has now spun dangerously out of control spiraling into drug abuse and brutal outbursts of violence.

Writer, director and star Monty Lapica in ThinkFilms' Self Medicated

Hanging by her own slim mental thread and not knowing what to do, Louise hires a private company to forcibly kidnap her child and take him to Brightway, a locked-down adolescent hospital. While the staff professes to only have his best interests at heart, their program includes both physical and psychological abuse bordering on torture.

Andrew realizes he must escape. More then that, he also comes to the stark realization that if he doesn’t change the direction of his life soon then incarcerations like this one are only the tip of the iceberg. He must face his demons, come to grips with his father’s death, something he’s never going to be able to do if the doctors at Brightway continue to have their unfettered way with him.

Based on his own true story, 24-year-old filmmaker Lapica writes, directs and stars in Self Medicated, a darling of the film festival circuit that has racked up an impressive 39 awards during its tour across the globe. Opening in limited release today, this is actually one time where all those accolades aren’t the kiss of death, the picture a stirring indictment of good intentions gone wrong and a breathlessly emotional story of a family doing all they can to finally discover a path to rise above adversity.

In other words, I liked it, sometimes even a lot. Venora is magnificent here, and as good as she’s been in Clint Eastwood’s Bird and Michael Mann’s Heat and The Insider this performance here might just be her very best. The woman burns through the screen like an emotional forest fire, a couple of her moments so heatedly intense I wondered if sitting in the theater I might get burned. This is a complicated, three-dimensional woman full of pain, heartbreak, confusion and, most of all, love, Venora painting this portrait of motherly devotion as if she were Picasso reincarnated.

I also liked how Lapica does not paint the Brightway doctors as soulless doctors. The sad fact here is that they really do want to help, and whether it is because of lack of education or experience what comes across on screen is that they just don’t possess the real-world abilities to do so. The world they’ve instead, maybe even inadvertently, created inside the hospital is one more akin to a Third World prison then an adolescent treatment facility, Lapica hitting just the right notes to bring these points across.

It isn’t completely smooth sailing, of course. There are some bumpy trivialities and clichés in Lapica’s screenplay which aren’t exactly original, Kristina Anapau’s saintly girlfriend character Nicole particularly annoying in a Lifetime Movie of the Week sort of way. Also, the filmmaker can’t quite escape the usual drugs-are-bad claptraps we’ve seen from movies as varied as Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, much of Andrew’s struggles unfortunately all ones we’ve seen a time or two before.

No matter, there is still searing, at times shockingly visceral power to be found here. Lapica, while still a novice as an actor (and probably a bit too old to play himself at 17), has some astonishing moments, a reunion scene between him and Venora nearly laying me out flat with its emotionally poignant power. Working in tandem with cinematographer Denis Maloney (The Contender) he also gives the film a broad, almost operatic scope belying its independent budget, the film achieving an aura of poetic majesty I honestly never would have expected from a first-time director. 

But it is the heart of the saga that carries the most weight here. Andrew’s story is universal and personal all at the same time and watching it I couldn’t help but get lost amidst its varied, sometimes violently erratic ebb and flow. Lapica grabbed me by the heartstrings and refused to let go, and by the time Self Medicated came to its (somewhat) familiar conclusion I still managed to fins myself wiping away more then a few tears. This movie is good, and based on what I see here I can’t wait to discover what cinematic locale this young man chooses to explore next.

Film Rating:  êêê  (out of 4)

Additonal Links

-  Interview with writer, director and star Monty Lapica by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  Self Medicated Theatrical Trailer