Posted September 30, 2021 by Raquel Stecher Documentaries

Woodstock Film Festival: Our American Family

“If 21 million Americans are struggling with addiction, how many family members are struggling alongside them?”
Hallee Adelman

Directed & Produced by Hallee Adelman & Sean King O’Grady, Our American Family is a brutally honest documentary that gives viewers an inside look into how addiction affects families.

Nicole is a drug addict who has been in an out of rehab over the years. In fact, she got pregnant in during one stint at rehab and is now leaning on her mother Linda to help her raise her daughter while she goes back for treatment for the tenth time. As the matriarch, Linda feels enormous pressure to not only help Nicole stay on track with her sobriety but also to raise her granddaughter and keep things together on the homefront. Her two grown sons are skeptical that Nicole will recover and are resentful about how much energy is diverted to dealing with their sister’s rollercoaster ride of addiction and sobriety. And to add to the familial strain, Nicole and Linda frequently find themselves butting heads.

Our American Family follows Nicole and her family as they navigate the ongoing repercussions of addiction. There are no interviews, just footage of the family living their day to day. The fly-on-the-wall perspective thrusts the audience right into the center of the evolving tension. This family could be any family in America dealing with the ongoing battle between addiction and recovery.