When we think of people being addicted to drugs we think of things like heroin and cocaine; we don’t as often think of things like Xanax and Codeine, but the reality is that these drugs often affect people as well. Anonymous Sister is filmed from the point of view of Jamie Boyle, who has experienced drug addiction through the eyes of her sister and mother. As she sits down with them to discover the truth about their addiction, she uncovers a series of emotional struggles that she never knew existed–not only in her own family, but around the world.
Anonymous Sister does something so brilliantly different from other documentaries of this nature–a family member takes charge and tasks themselves with bringing to light the dirty laundry buried deep within their household. For Jamie to step up and be the one that digs deep into her family history as a way not only to help them but to help others as well is incredible and commendable, but, honestly, my praise of Anonymous Sister stops there. I’m floored by how passionate Jamie is not just about her own family but about the opioid crisis as a whole–but beyond that she takes a turn down an eerily familiar path, and it’s infuriating.
It feels like many of the individuals in Anonymous Sister are attempting to transfer blame to others rather than take responsibility for their own actions. Millions of people are prescribed opioids every year for a series of reasons, and it’s a small percentage of them that become addicted, that struggle to separate themselves from the drug. That seems to be an unfortunate trend that’s building, a trend that I”m worried will end up plaguing our society in a way that never allows us to come back–and Anonymous Sister perpetuates this cycle. I can certainly understand loved ones wanting to find answers, wanting to find a way to stop others from suffering in the same way that they were forced to, but I can’t understand cleansing the addicts of blame and handing it to someone else. To be clear, Anonymous Sister doesn’t look to wash the subjects altogether of blame, but with the way the film plays out, it’s impossible not to see this as part of the film’s purpose.
In a lot of ways Anonymous Sister works to showcase another issue present in our current world: lack of accountability. It concerns me when I see films like this, films that appear to perpetuate this cycle and express to others that the current state of the union, one in which we can just point fingers and transfer blame, is alright. We are treading dangerous, murky waters, and Anonymous Sister allows us to remain stagnant in our ways, not teaching us a lesson, but quite the opposite.
While I often complain about documentaries being too simplistic, Anonymous Sister may be more universally accepted if Jamie took a more simplistic approach. The film needed to veer from the idea of perpetuating a cycle and look to make a legitimate change (as it claims to be doing). I genuinely appreciate the fact that Jamie is willing to spread the word in regard to opioids (even at the expense of her own family), but I feel she needs to find a new way to do it.
Directed by Jamie Boyle.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
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