Stevie (2003)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

An absolute waste of money

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

In 1981 the director of this documentary, Steve James, volunteered with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization to become a big brother to eleven year old Stevie Fielding. The Big Brothers Big Sisters program matches adult volunteers to serve as mentors for children ages six through eighteen. The children in the program are judged to be in need of support from a stable adult. Stevie Fielding clearly satisfies that criterion. Born out of wedlock, he never knew his father and his mother did not want him. His mother beat him and he made the rounds of foster homes where he was beaten and raped. In 1985 James left Stevie and the rural southern Illinois area where he lived and went to Chicago. In 1994 James returned to check in on Stevie and that is where this documentary begins, with Stevie now 23 years old. It is not surprising that Stevie has some serious emotional problems and is not doing all that well, having racked up multiple arrests in the intervening years. He does have some support from a stepsister and from a girlfriend. He has been accused of having molested an eight year old girl while babysitting her, resulting in court proceedings. Stevie's molestation case moving through the courts casts a cloud that hangs over the entire documentary until the final resolution.Lots of questions came up for me. How should a person like Stevie be understood and treated? Was he doomed by his past, or could there have been a different path for him? Would things have been different if Steve James had not left? Was Stevie's limited emotional and intellectual range due mainly to his background, or was it genetically encoded? How was it that these people granted James such intimate access to there lives?One of the interesting things about the movie is trying to figure out how Stevie sees the world. Nowhere is it mentioned that he has a classifiable psychiatric condition, such as Down Syndrome or schizophrenia, but he clearly has intellectual and emotional challenges. Stevie seems to have the maturity of a child. Although Stevie did not admit to any wrongdoing, I wonder if in fact he knew that he had done something seriously wrong by molesting the girl. I could not view Stevie as a pedophile in the sense that he necessarily had a compulsion to have sex with children. It's almost like his transgression just happened, maybe due to his childlike nature. But what should be done with a person like Stevie? Is jail really the answer? He refused a plea bargain that would have required him to seek psychiatric help. I doubt that Stevie will come out of jail (if indeed he survives the experience) with any chance of having a satisfying life, either for himself or those around him, not to mention his likely recidivism.A lot of the themes that surface in this documentary reminded me of those in Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men," which deals with the close relationship between a ordinary man and a man with the mental development of a child. Themes addressed are: societal and personal obligations, loneliness, justice, understanding others.As this movie ground on to its sad end I found it to be one of the most depressing movies I have seen. Every fifteen minutes or so it became so painful to watch that I was tempted to give up on it, but I saw it through to the end.

this dirty guy should have got life he had or tried to have sex with an 8 year old girl and look at the way he acts no way should this idiot be let out on the streets so he can do something worse and then this girlfriend of his the worse says i don't want him to go to jail i love him don't you realize this guy done a sex crime on an 8 year old little girl you are a true moron you are as stupid as a box of rocks and so is that idiot girlfriend of yours you should be locked up for the rest of your life you are also a very ugly looking person and the inside of you is even worse you act stupid you look stupid and you are a filthy dirty sex offender on a little 8 year old girl i truly hope one day i read about a horrible death that became you because the world would be a better place without you in it

I had a tough time watching the scene where the camera is on Steve James as Tonya tells him that at least something good came of all this, that at least a film was made about Stevie. I didn't like how long they allowed the camera to catch Steve's emotional reaction and it seemed a little too obvious...like the scene in Broadcast News where William Hurt whips up some tears to show on camera. I don't like that kind of manipulation. However, that being said, I don't mean to imply that Steven James wasn't sincere in his reaction; it was his editing choice that seems insincere.It's a complicated film. Just like Stevie the person, there are no easy answers; unlike Stevie the person, life is not simply black and white. I do think the title reflects many things: the subject as he is now, the director's memory of Stevie the little boy, and the director himself. I don't believe that Stevie was exploited, but there is something in the intention of the film that is unsettling. And I think that unsettling feeling is an okay thing to have. If I taught a film class, this is a film I would definitely want to use to explore the nature of point of view, the ethics of documentary film-making, and the nature of simply being human.I adored Tonya's friend in Chicago. Tonya, her friend, and Wanda reflect the very best about people and shatter easy stereotypes. These are all smart, independent, warm, thoughtful women, which is just wonderful to see in a documentary film.

I enjoyed this documentary.I enjoyed looking at people in a whole different world, they remind me of some of my trailer park relatives, the way they talk, dress, sit on the couch or porch and get liquored up, the lack of education, how lonely a lot of these people are, particularly if your bouncing foster homes as a kid.My favorite part was when Stevie was baptized, I wonder if it really got through to him, if anything can really get through to him.I'm sure he is getting what he deserves, and this for me was just a weird video, something so random off the shelf at blockbuster that you'd never think of watching and being fascinated by the random weirdness of the people.