Brother, I Cry
Centered on a family’s struggles with addiction, Brother, I Cry is a searing drama about the lengths a sister goes to protect her brother from himself. Jon (Justin Rain of The Walking Dead), a young First Nations man, is on methadone and trying to hold down a job for the sake of his girlfriend and their unborn child. But the car thief has multiple warrants out for his arrest and keeps bad company in the person of Martin (Jay Cardinal Villeneuve), a small-time criminal and user. Martin pulls Jon deeper into a life of crime, just when he’s trying to turn his life around.
Jon’s sister, Ava (a stoic performance from Lauren Hill), meanwhile, is willing to turn Jon in to the police if it means keeping him safe and prevents him from stealing from his own family.
Helmed by Haudenosaunee director Jessie Anthony, Brother, I Cry is a compelling, despairing look at the trauma of addiction and the ways it affects family. It’s tinged with darkness, particularly during nightmare sequences — some of them Jon’s and some of them Ava’s — that edge into horror territory. It subtly weaves in a narrative of intergenerational drug and alcohol abuse and the challenges that come with breaking cycles of addiction and staging difficult but necessary interventions.
Rain’s naturalistic acting is a tour de force. He comes off as cynical at times but conveys a sense that it’s driven by a deep-rooted pain. He’s matched by a wonderful performance from Violet Cameron (Batwoman) as Leah, his pregnant girlfriend whose tenderhearted turn evokes great sympathy. We care about these people. We care about their fates. And that makes the sense of impending tragedy all the more poignant.
By Michael Abatemarco