Delia: The Recovery Series
1985 · 12m · Canada
Directed by Moira Simpson
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
Vancouver therapist Delia, who coached women through addiction, quits her job to enter treatment for her own drinking and rebuilds life with her son one day at a time.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A redemption narrative about a therapist-turned-patient should be insufferable—the irony practically writes itself—but Simpson sidesteps the trap entirely, which is either a miracle or proof that sometimes the obvious move is the right one.
This is observational documentary operating at the highest formal register: the intimacy of recovery without sentimentality, a careful study of how time and presence rebuild what addiction dismantles, situated in a lineage of intimate portraiture that respects both subject and viewer.
The decision to let Delia speak in her own voice rather than over footage, to stay close and still rather than reach for narrative momentum—it's the choice that transforms what could be a PSA into something genuinely tender and alive.