Stevie

êêê½

Unrated (equivalent to PG-13)

Director

Steve James

Family Ties

Starring

"Stevie" burns across the screen and leaves a permanent scar on your intellect. You think you know these people; poor, white, living in trailers and run down houses just off the limited-access highways and rural routes we speed along in our cars and SUV's. The same filmmakers chronicled the lives of a poor, black, urban family, living in the projects in their critically acclaimed, award winning documentary "Hoop Dreams," nearly 10 years ago.

Director Steve James and fellow producers Gordon Quinn and Adam Singer have again produced what Quinn describes as, "…a film that looks at families in often ignored American communities, as they deal with the consequences of their own and society's actions."

When Steve James was in graduate school at Southern Illinois University, he became a Big Brother for young Stevie Fielding of Pamona. Stevie, physically and emotionally abused by his mother, Bernice, was left, when a toddler, to be raised by her mother-in-law who, in a cruel twist of fate, lived next door.

A few years later Steve moved to Chicago to begin his career, promising to keep in touch with Stevie, which he didn't do. Ten years later, when Steve returns to Pamona, Stevie has grown into a troubled, disheveled young man, sporting a chain with an 8-ball dangling around his neck. Several foster homes, more abuse, and a string of arrests pepper his past. But he also has a fiancé; Tonya, a bit slow but devoted to Stevie and kind.

A horrendous crime that Stevie confesses to but later denies devastates the family and threatens to tear them apart permanently. The relationships with his estranged mother, his Grandmother Verna, who raised him, and his sister Brenda and her husband, are threadbare, at best. The plan to do a small film about Stevie's life escalates to a more than five-year project.

Steve James' on-screen involvement was unplanned as well. As a documentary filmmaker he wanted to be unobtrusive. Because of his history with Stevie, however, and at the urging of the crew, Steve says, "I found myself becoming a character."

"Stevie" is populated with characters, perhaps some you'll recognize from your own family. Tonya's friend in Chicago, who is disabled, is unforgettable. An inspiring couple, once foster parents to Stevie, offers him encouragement.