Stevie

Hoop Dreams director Steve James puts himself at the centre of this personal, intensely moving documentary about Stevie Fielding, a troubled kid he 'big brothered' back in his college days, but left behind in Southern Illinois when he moved to Chicago. Ten years on, he finds Stevie has a long criminal record, and he's just been charged with abusing an 8-year-old cousin. Can they reconnect? What has gone wrong for Stevie? Is he beyond help? To what extent does the film exploit Stevie's trust? This last question gets its due, but the film's interest is in the residue of sympathy it taps for this bruised and overgrown delinquent, tragically caught up in and perpetuating a terrible cycle of abuse, in the fractured family ties which continue to pull him every which way, and in the fleeting glimpses of hope Steve James finds in the wreckage.