'Stevie': A documentary examines how a boy nobody loved became a man nobody could help
One way of looking at Stevie, Steve James' sad, sobering documentary portrait of a troubled young man and the forces that shaped his life, is as a "There-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I" cautionary tale. What sort of shot in life does someone have, when they've emerged from a childhood devoid of love and nurturing? There's an element of guilt on filmmaker James' part, too - which he acknowledges in his voice-over narration. Here's a happily married, respected filmmaker (James directed the acclaimed 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams) who has come back to reacquaint himself with Stevie Fielding, who, a decade earlier, James had come to know as an Advocate Big Brother.
One way of looking at Stevie, Steve James' sad, sobering documentary portrait of a troubled young man and the forces that shaped his life, is as a "There-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I" cautionary tale. What sort of shot in life does someone have, when they've emerged from a childhood devoid of love and nurturing?
There's an element of guilt on filmmaker James' part, too - which he acknowledges in his voice-over narration. Here's a happily married, respected filmmaker (James directed the acclaimed 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams) who has come back to reacquaint himself with Stevie Fielding, who, a decade earlier, James had come to know as an Advocate Big Brother.
Fielding, 24 when James first returns with his camera crew to a rural and impoverished swatch of southern Illinois, experienced a childhood rife with physical and sexual abuse. He never knew his father; his mother never wanted him (and showed it), and he was handed over to a step-grandmother who raised him with her own unique mix of indifference, violence and contempt.
James was in college when he became Fielding's Big Brother. Stevie was a jumpy and wild 11-year-old at the time. Now a Harley-riding, tattooed adult with a lengthy arrest record, drug-and-alcohol problems, and difficulty holding down a job, Fielding has been accused of sexually molesting an 8-year-old cousin. Through interviews with Fielding, and with his relatives, friends and a girlfriend, Stevie attempts to make sense - not excuses, just sense - of the hows and whys behind this event.
Stevie presents documentary proof, as it were, of the clinical thesis that most child-abusers were abused themselves as children. It also presents a chilling picture of family dysfunction, and destruction, in the impoverished backwater precincts of rural America. The film shows how the social system set up by various government agencies (reform schools, counseling, prison) can fail the people it has been designed to help. Worse yet, the system can foster further negative behavior.
Filmmaker James - whose wife is a social worker - should be applauded for his courage and commitment. He's endeavored to find the humanity in someone many would dismiss as a lost cause, a man who should be locked up. Stevie is compelling, real-life drama: bleak and disturbing, but illuminating all the same.
Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.
Stevie *** (out of four stars)
Directed by Steve James. With Stephen Dale Fielding, Verna Hagler and Tonya Gregory.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 mins.
Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (adult themes, profanity)
Playing at: Ritz Five