A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since it did win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, since it had a strong reputation, I was actually expecting more from the damned thing which turned out to be 2 movies into 1. Indeed, on one hand, they focused on Nan Goldin’s life and career and, on the other hand, her recent battle with the Sackler family who was behind the opioid crisis in the US but, to be honest, I’m not sure if this mix really worked after all. First of all, I have to admit that I had never heard of Nan Goldin before and it was really neat to discover this really interesting artist. Indeed, her life and work were quite fascinating and I think I would have perfectly content if they would focused only on that. I mean, her fight against the Sacklers was also interesting but I had a hard time to see how it did fit with her life in general. There was also the fact that it was obvious that Goldin had been using (and abusing) recreational drugs for pretty much her whole adult life and, to be honest, I think there was something disingenuous about her complaining about the fact that she got hooked on some legal drug pushed by her doctor(s) and the pharmaceutical industry. I mean, there is nothing more hard-breaking then hearing all these stories about young kids who never touched any drugs and suddenly became addicts after getting this legal drug prescribed but I do think that it was a completely different story for Goldin. Finally, there was the fact that she was supposedly instrumental for the ‘downfall of the Sackler family’ but, at the end of the day, sure, they paid a lot of money but it turned out to be only a fraction of their huge fortune and, to be honest, who cares if their name was removed from some fancy museums? I’m pretty sure that it didn’t bother the Sacklers that much and I’m definitely sure that the drug addicts overdosing on this stuff certainly didn’t care at all but I can imagine that it did give Golding a better feeling about herself. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a decent watch though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested by this subject matter.