Bea at Rehab
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Kerry O'Neill
Genres: drama
Tones: melancholic, tense
A young girl is left at a rehab facility by her mother and has to stay invisible to the staff. A surrogate mother figure shields her through a day of escalating close calls until a playground moment cracks the cover.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Addiction stories love the addict's POV; this one ducks under the table and watches from the kid's. That displacement of perspective is the whole pitch and it's a smart one.
The institutional negative-space of a rehab seen from a hidden child's eye-level is a remarkably specific formal gesture, and editor Joey Izzo's breath-held cutting is name-checked for a reason. Durkin-shorts territory with Sean Baker's kid-eyed grace.
Kid-POV of a rehab she's hiding inside, with Joey Izzo cutting it — that breathless-edit signal is doing real work here, and basing it on a true story explains why the close-calls escalate with such specificity. Strong.
Reviews
Heartbreakingly portrays the fallout from addiction, and the messy institutional safety nets that attempt to break the fall.