Stevie (2003)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

In 1981 the director of this documentary, Steve James, volunteered with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization to become a big brother to eleven year old Stevie Fielding. The Big Brothers Big Sisters program matches adult volunteers to serve as mentors for children ages six through eighteen. The children in the program are judged to be in need of support from a stable adult. Stevie Fielding clearly satisfies that criterion. Born out of wedlock, he never knew his father and his mother did not want him. His mother beat him and he made the rounds of foster homes where he was beaten and raped. In 1985 James left Stevie and the rural southern Illinois area where he lived and went to Chicago. In 1994 James returned to check in on Stevie and that is where this documentary begins, with Stevie now 23 years old. It is not surprising that Stevie has some serious emotional problems and is not doing all that well, having racked up multiple arrests in the intervening years. He does have some support from a stepsister and from a girlfriend. He has been accused of having molested an eight year old girl while babysitting her, resulting in court proceedings. Stevie's molestation case moving through the courts casts a cloud that hangs over the entire documentary until the final resolution.Lots of questions came up for me. How should a person like Stevie be understood and treated? Was he doomed by his past, or could there have been a different path for him? Would things have been different if Steve James had not left? Was Stevie's limited emotional and intellectual range due mainly to his background, or was it genetically encoded? How was it that these people granted James such intimate access to there lives?One of the interesting things about the movie is trying to figure out how Stevie sees the world. Nowhere is it mentioned that he has a classifiable psychiatric condition, such as Down Syndrome or schizophrenia, but he clearly has intellectual and emotional challenges. Stevie seems to have the maturity of a child. Although Stevie did not admit to any wrongdoing, I wonder if in fact he knew that he had done something seriously wrong by molesting the girl. I could not view Stevie as a pedophile in the sense that he necessarily had a compulsion to have sex with children. It's almost like his transgression just happened, maybe due to his childlike nature. But what should be done with a person like Stevie? Is jail really the answer? He refused a plea bargain that would have required him to seek psychiatric help. I doubt that Stevie will come out of jail (if indeed he survives the experience) with any chance of having a satisfying life, either for himself or those around him, not to mention his likely recidivism.A lot of the themes that surface in this documentary reminded me of those in Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men," which deals with the close relationship between a ordinary man and a man with the mental development of a child. Themes addressed are: societal and personal obligations, loneliness, justice, understanding others.As this movie ground on to its sad end I found it to be one of the most depressing movies I have seen. Every fifteen minutes or so it became so painful to watch that I was tempted to give up on it, but I saw it through to the end.

this doco kept me glued to my seat through its entirety strictly because of the tragic and appalling set of circumstances and revelations that kept this story about a boys broken life moving forward so miserably that i needed to know what became of him....i should of known! Im not sure whether the director's intentions were to solely benefit himself but as an "ex big brother" he didn't offer much guidance. In a way i blame Steve James for Stevies full 10year jail sentence because Stevie was convinced he had done nothing wrong and wouldn't admit to nothing... i think Steve could have talked sense into him and he would of got a much lighter sentence had he just admitted to it then gotten the real help he needed.

The synopsis does sound terrible, however if you are willing to challenge your behalves and conceptions you'll get to see a film which is, with no better words to put it, simply unbelievable. And yes, it does require some open mind to really appreciate it, but hi, doesn't all great art does? This film will open your heart in a way you couldn't anticipate, regardless of how strongly you feel about child abuse. Stevie himself was abused and raped over and over again, from one abusing family to another. There's a commentator here that claims she knows lots of people who had it worse, well, I don't know where she's coming from but this is one horrible childhood. But like a genuine work of art this film doesn't come to advocate a man who did a terrible crime, he just trying to follow the road that was broken from the first brick. One of the greatest cinematic works of our time that has yet to receive its recognition.

How dare anyone make a movie humanizing a child raping monster? I just caught this for the first time on TV, and was completely disgusted. Where's the person who is going to tell the story of that innocent 8 year old child? Anyone who feels sorry for this man needs as much help as he does. He had chance after chance to turn his life around, and instead he stole, assaulted, and raped... Give me a break. And he even had a chance to speak on his own behalf at his sentencing, but instead he acted like he just couldn't even be bothered. I know he had bad things happen to him as a kid, but who hasn't? I know plenty of people with a childhood similar if not worse than his, and don't grow up to be self destructive pedophiles.