Stevie (2003)

Steve James' documentary Stevie is a discomfiting, but laudably honest film about an accused child molester and the filmmaker's efforts to understand the forces that shaped him. Painfully intimate, Stevie is as much about the filmmaker's responsibility toward the young man as it is about Stephen Fielding's life. But from the opening epigram from William Faulkner, it's increasingly questionable how much James' belated return to his subject's life can help Fielding. Much to his and the film's credit, James acknowledges his sense of futility, even questioning his own motives in bringing Fielding's story to the screen. Certainly, Stevie is a compelling story, about a type of person we never see treated seriously and compassionately in American movies. James' feelings of responsibility toward his subject offer us a way in -- a way of seeing past Fielding's seemingly hopeless present to the mistreated child he once was. The film reaches a nadir of despair as a "friend" of Fielding's, who claims to belong to the Aryan Brotherhood, tells Fielding and James about the horrific type of treatment Fielding can expect in prison if he's convicted of child molestation. But there are also very moving glimpses of hope and happiness in Fielding's life, from the surprisingly clear-eyed devotion of his girlfriend, Tonya Gregory, to the incredible patience and forgiveness of his sister, Brenda Hickam, and her husband, Doug. When James brings Fielding to meet with a couple who were once his foster parents, perhaps the only decent caretakers Fielding ever had in his life, their unconditional compassion sparks the troubled young man's regression to a relatively carefree state, and it's heartbreaking. James doesn't pretend to offer solutions to any of the problems his film addresses, but in offering a glimmer of hope for Fielding's soul, the filmmaker performs a useful and humane task. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide