Stephen

Director Melanie Manchot’s first feature has its roots in her work with a group of recovering addicts of various stripes. Manchot, perhaps better known as a visual artist, mixes participants from the group with professional actors, blurring fiction with reality for what is ultimately a powerful study of addiction. Stephen Giddings, one of the non-professionals, plays himself, or at least a version of himself, a man struggling with alcohol and gambling problems. He is also an aspiring actor hoping to win the lead in a film, portraying a man struggling with addictions that threaten everything he has achieved. Manchot’s labyrinthine layering of fact and fiction, of films-within-films is however, no mere academic exercise. The director handles the inherent sensitivities of her method with nuance and sympathy, creating an emotionally involving piece that proves gripping, compassionate viewing.