Self-Medicated (2007)

Lapica's lack of distance from his story is both the film's strength and its weakness.

Note to fledgling directors: when making a movie, you don't have to do everything yourself. In fact, you probably shouldn't.

Self-Medicated must have been cathartic for writer-director-producer-star Monty Lapica to make, but its therapeutic value for audiences is questionable.

On the basis of this film, Monty Lapica, at 24, has a career ahead of him as a director, an actor or both. He also has a life ahead of him, which the film does a great deal to make clear.

The movie slides toward melodrama with some stale business about the hero spreading his late father's ashes and an embarrassing sequence in which a homeless man washes Lapica's car, delivers a benediction, and magically disappears.

Lapica's debut impresses with its strong, clear voice and desire to tell a very personal story not just of substance abuse but of that abuse's painful root cause.