Educational Media Reviews Online

Dr. Murray Nossel, of the Columbia University School of Social Work, partnered with producer/filmmaker Roger Weisberg to document one family’s determination to stay together despite the mother’s difficulties overcoming drug addition. Both Nossel and Weisberg were inspired to create this film by the work of Sister Mary Paul Janchill and Sister Geraldine Tobi at the Center for Family Life, in Brooklyn, where social workers strive to strengthen communities by focusing on the welfare of children and their families.

Viewers will appreciate the relaxed format of this documentary. Voiceovers are used sparingly, allowing each individual’s personality to shine through. The family’s story is told via intimate dialogues with the social worker, poignant conversations between family members, and simple moments in the children’s lives, like a basketball game, high school graduation, and Christmas shopping, all of which is filmed and edited with a sensitive hand.

Most salient is the resilience and unfailing hope of the two young men and their grandmother as they struggle to preserve the mother’s custody rights despite her repeated neglect and failure to come clean. The boys relate incidents in their early childhood, such as when their mother deserted them for days on end, until all the food in the house was gone. Such horrors will surely have left emotional scars, yet the brothers’ courage and resourcefulness in the face of strife is stunning. While this family is unique, the issues they face, sadly, are common. The grandmother, forced into a second motherhood, must bear the burden of raising two boys while dealing with ceaseless worry concerning her daughter’s rehabilitation. It’s not going well. The daughter admits, through tears, that she is losing the will to fight - or even to live - yet she pulls herself together to celebrate her son’s graduation from high school. This award-winning film, whether shown in the classroom or community theater, should strengthen the resolve of concerned citizens and social workers to support troubled families, if for nothing more than to celebrate the beauty of the human spirit.