6 Balloons

Director: Marja-Lewis Ryan
Year Released: 2018
Rating: 1.0

While planning a surprise birthday party for her boyfriend, Katie (Abbi Jacobson) takes it upon herself to care for her brother Seth (Dave Franco), who has relapsed and is back to using heroin ... and has a toddler, Ella, that he's supposed to be fathering. As harrowing as the scenes are of Franco shaking and sweating and shooting up in a drug store bathroom (with the aid of toilet water and some colorful lookin' H), there isn't a lot of context/detail to provide this with adequate depth: it's just an actorly exercise in depicting addiction and how it visibly affects those around them. Not helping any is director Ryan's use of 'self-help' audio clips to 'show' how Jacobson's loyal sis is trying to cope with the feeling of 'drowning' ("You see a boat on the dock," "You are in the water") - it's an annoying addition to an already facile project.