STEVIE
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Lions Gate Films Directed by: Steve James Cast: Steve James, Stephen Dale Fielding, Verna Hagler, Bernice Hagler, Brenda Hickam, Doug Hickam, Tonya Gregory Screened at: Review, NYC, 2/25/03
Some people say that we New Yorkers are the country's most provincial people, believing as we do that anything west of the Hudson River is Boonyville not worth looking into since we have it all right here on our tight little island. I could imagine my colleagues in the screening room wondering how to react to the folks who inhabit Steve James's latest doc, "Stevie," which deals with the lives of people whom patrons of the smoked salmon at Zabar's and connoisseurs of sushi at Tribeca's Nobu restaurant never really see. Should we look at them in our usual smug manner, writing these rural people off as trailer trash (they do live more or less in trailers in the southern Illinois town of Pomona); should we feel patronizing, giving them a false, sympathetic understanding as though to say "hey, you guys can have just as much fun in life as we in the Big Apple!" Most of all we may wonder what the filmmaker thinks of his subject; in fact, he does admit to having some feelings of guilt, that perhaps he is exploiting these undereducated folks to bolster his own vitae, a reputation that took off just after he released the critically praised, box-office bonanza "Hoop Dreams" in 1994 about two Chicago inner-city kids, Arthur Agee and William Gates, who dream of basketball stardom and how they fare over a four year period of study.
"Stevie" tells us not only about its title character, the sort of guy some think they can like, even love, despite his criminal record; not only about the people in his immediate environs, some of whom could be blamed as the cause of his problems with the law; but about the relationship of Steve James himself to his subject, Stevie Fielding. Tossing aside the conventional documentary approach talking heads blah blah blah he sets up a scenario with them, ostensibly catching them with Dana Kupper, Gordon Quinn and Peter Gilbert's inconspicuous cameras but actually (I'd guess) calling upon them to improvise their dialogue. The action appears staged, but that technique does not in any way take away from the truths that Steve James elicits.
James is in a unique position to make this film, not only because of his huge success nine years ago with "Hoop Dreams" but principally because he had enjoyed a long-term relationship with Stevie Fielding, acting as his big brother off and on for a decade or so. He began his mentoring of the troubled eleven- year-old Stevie while at Southern Illinois U. during the mid 1980s, but lost contact with the boy when James took off to make films. When he returned to Stevie, who was now twenty-four years of age, he may have expected the lad to have accumulated a string of arrests on robbery charges but was shocked to hear that he was facing considerable time for having molested and 8-year-old girl for whom he was babysitting. The film takes us on what Spike Lee's Brogan would call his 25th hour but in fact lasts for several weeks as Stevie decides whether to plea bargain or to take his chances on a trial that could land him a long prison sentence.
As you might expect, Stevie's trouble did not occur in a vacuum. The illegitimate son of Bernice Hagler was hardly a love child. Beaten to a pulp whenever Bernice's mood called for such action and dumped by her into her mother-in-law Verna's shack just down the road, Stevie wound up in foster homes where he was raped and got arrested for a series of thefts. Luckily some people in the area of Pomona were there to care for him; principally his step-grandmother, his step-sister Brenda Hickam who was trying desperately to have a child, his "slow" fiance Tonya Gregory who loves him despite all because he makes her feel special, and of course Big Brother filmmaker Steve James.
I think that James is eager for his audience to share his own affection for the troubled young man, a difficult feat given Stevie's criminal record, but despite his rotting teeth, the ugly tattoos on his arms, the cheap, oversized eyeglasses, the scruffy beard and his infuriating lack of self-knowledge, something does indeed peek through. Without these strands of humanity we in the audience would simply throw up our arms and think, "Who cares what happens here?" James, who had initially thought he would remain in the background simply recording the life that surrounds his subject instead takes an active role in the drama of a guy who thanks to this gifted director-producer-editor gets his fifteen minutes of fame.
Could Stevie have been turned around by those people who maintained faith in him despite the abuse he suffered principally at the hands of his mother? Probably not: that's what has us leave the theater in a less-than-optimistic mood and could throw us into the mind-set of the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key crowd, the conservatives who believe that there's nothing that can be done to charm the devil out of mankind's evil ways. "Stevie" has much to say about the lives of people who crave attention and who don't care whether that attention is positive or negative. We're left with the bleak knowledge given the young man's lack of self- knowledge, his rebelliousness, so pronounced that he'd rather serve four additional years in jail than to express remorse in front of a judge, that do-gooders may alleviate his pain to an extent but cannot turn him into a responsible, empathetic citizen.
Not Rated. 144 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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