Shattered Spirits

Martin Sheen brings his own personal experience with family alcoholism into this story. I have used this film many times in my outpatient substance abuse treatment group therapy sessions to "trigger" processing and to bring folks out of their own denial about alcoholism. I have used many other resources in the past six years but this movie is the unanimous first choice among my clients for impacting their recovery decisions! Sometimes difficult to watch, especially the family violence, but truth is often difficult to watch!

I saw this movie while in a high school health class. The instructor thought so highly of it he said he would show it to all his classes no matter how dated it was, I see why! I haven't seen "Shattered Spirits" since 1995 on cable, but I remember it well. With the huge success of "The West Wing" and the reissue of "Apocalypse Now" perhaps Martin Sheen's star will get this movie back in the arena. This movie is about a hard working, reliable family man who has only one problem-drinking. It deals with the issue in a totally believable way. Sheen's 'family' consists of Melinda Dillion (the mom from "A Christmas Story"), Matthew Laborteaux (Albert from "Little House on the Prarie"), and Lukas Haas ("Witness"). Although it does reek of the mid 1980's, that won't matter. If you can find this on video, or if it ever shows up on TV somewhere...SEE IT! You won't regret it.

Final rating: 9/10 "A classic. No flaws or complaints from me, just doesn't have that 'special magic' to give it a full 10."

I'm sorry for whoever thinks this is such a great movie. I saw this flick years ago in my health education class in high school and I think most people in the class laffed. Well yea we were young, but I've seen this and still think it's funny. I have been around boozers this bad and I understand. But I can't get over the scene where Sheen whips out the lawn mower at like 3 AM. I crack up to this day thinking about that scene. I do like the scene where he decides to hit the bar and the kid drives the van home. I learned so much from the enabler crap in that movie, that it seems like anyone who is around that kinda of madness and doesn't talk about it turns into an enabler.

If you have ever lived with an alcoholic this movie will hit home. It does well at defining and portraying the roles of an alcoholic family. There is the Dependent (Dad), the Codependent (Mom), the Hero (oldest child), the Scapegoat (middle child) and the Lost Child (youngest child). They just needed one more kid to portray the Family Masscot to cover all of the typical roles of an addicted family. I have lived in this type of family and this was painful for me to watch at points because it is realistic. I work in the treatment field, and we have shown this film to clients in group to demonstrate the roles of the alcoholic family.

If ever there was a movie that you should watch to battle alcoholism, this is it. It deals with such important issues relating to the addiction- family relationships, denial, social behaviour, work, the heartbreaking effects and the treatment. This may be just a TV Movie but boy does it pack a punch, thanks mainly to the performance of Martin Sheen which is nothing short of superb. In fact it's hard to think of anyone else who could have done better if half as good. There are some truly memorable scenes - Sheen lawnmowing at night, and the family confrontation in the family room where Sheen destroys the room and then his kids are taken away, are almost hard to watch because of the honesty and detail of such a disrupted family. I watched this movie on Foxs Hallmark channel and im glad i did. If you can get past the dated 80's look and feel (tic tac toe, bubble gum, terrible hair and music apart from Billy Idol) then this is one you should not miss. An important film that everybody should watch. 9/10.