It's not often that a film comes along that accurately captures the incredibly bleak and painful world of heroin addiction. Critically acclaimed films like Trainspotting and Requiem For a Dream are quick to come to mind, but fifteen long years have past since the subject has been hit so emotionally and true to life. David Dastmalchian, the film's writer and lead actor opposite of Kim Shaw, has taken his own past experience and personal struggles with addiction and used it to create a film that captures the day to day struggle an addict faces in a fashion that is second to none.
I've been on methadone maintenance successfully for eleven years and over that time I've forgotten the horror's of my past or maybe buried would be a better term. So this film was real on a very personal level to me, it was as if I was reliving past experiences as events unfolded within the film. I've read that Dastmalchian worked with director Collin Schiffli for a number of years on this project and their devotion to the film shows in its execution. While it's not quite as artistic and visually spectacular as Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream, it held its own and it didn't romanticize the subject like certain films do. This film is just a small slice out of the life of an addict, what you see here is perfectly normal and it's a cycle of hell that just repeats itself daily. Nothing is stable, you're never ahead of tomorrow. It's nice to see that Dastmalchian has been one of the rare few who has escaped the trappings of addiction and went on to much better things in life. In this case writing his first script and taking the lead in Animals, a film that is certainly worth a look.
