On the surface, one of the most interesting documentaries premiering at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival is Sean Dunne’s mass drug addiction doc, Oxyana. The question is, is this first time feature-length filmmaker able to captivate his audience with the sobbing story that he’s bringing to light?
Oceana, West Virginia used to be a wonderful place to live. It was a small mining town where people wouldn’t have to ever lock their doors and could walk around without a care in the world, especially when surrounded by the beautiful Appalachian Mountains. Then out of nowhere Oxycotin was introduced and soon prescription drug abuse became an epidemic in the small poverty stricken town, creating addicts out of a majority of the population and killing off a significant amount of its residents. Everyone that lives in Oceana, now dubbed Oxyana, knows someone personally that has died or has been directly affected by Oxycotin, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in Dunne’s feature documentary debut.
Dunne does a great job of setting the stage for the film and finding the right subjects to interview. He’s got such a diverse slate of subjects including hardcore addicts, addict/dealers, former addicts, non-addicts, parents, and more that explain the impact of Oxycotin on their lives and how it has impacted the town and the people around them. To give you a clear idea of how upsetting the situation is, you have teenage girls whoring themselves out on main street to get cash for their fix, it is no longer safe to walk around in town for fear of being mugged and, for one young guy, half of his graduating high school class has died because of Oxycotin. It’s a serious issue and Dunne’s subjects and storytelling makes it clear.
One of the clear takeaways is that once you become addicted to Oxycotin, you don’t care about anything else but getting your fix. If you don’t, you become a completely different person and will do anything to remedy that situation which, you’ll hear throughout the film, can lead to terrible things.
The subjects of the film is most certainly fascinating, but there are a few problems with Oxyana that significantly takes away from its impact. Firstly, when we are introduced to each person, Dunne doesn’t formally do the introduction using text on the screen, instead we are left to figure out everyone’s names, which gets difficult especially when two of the characters look almost identical. This is the biggest mistake a filmmaker can make because, one, it makes it very difficult for the audience to connect with the person on screen and, two, it becomes difficult to discuss the film afterwards because you aren’t sure how to identify each person. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the people are trying to remain anonymous but the people use their names in the film and you can also find them in the press notes, so clearly it’s not one.
Secondly, the film just gets very repetitive. It probably would have worked out so much better if it was a 60 minute doc versus a 83 minute once because then all the excess fat could have been trimmed off, keeping the key elements prevalent instead of muddled in the same stories being told.
Thirdly, I had mentioned that there were a nice variety of subjects but the one area that doesn’t get e
nough attention is the law. We talk with one person involved with policing the town for about two minutes and we never return to the subject. I think it’s important to flesh out further why it’s difficult to regulate and why they can’t do anything to stop the over prescribing of drugs in Oceana, it’s as if they just want to let the epidemic run wild until everyone in the town is dead.
Lastly, as the film progresses, you can sense that the stories are gradually getting more personal and much more intense. Eventually we return to one of the main subjects, James, and he tells one of the most depressing and horrifying drug related stories you’ll ever hear, leaving your jaw dropped as he concludes telling it. Once the story concludes the film returns to scenic shots of the town similar to the opening credits which makes you think the movie is over and it would have been a perfect way to end it, instead it pulls a LOTR: Return of the King move and goes back to talking with various subject, ruining the impact of the story and dragging the movie on. I hope that whoever picks the film up makes the necessary cuts because there is a lot of promise in the movie but as it stands it isn’t worth all of your time.
The topic of Oxyana is a truly fascinating and a shocking one that definitely deserves attention but there are many storytelling detractors that make the film much less impactful than it should have been. Dunne found the right people and the right subject for his film, he just wasn’t able to execute it properly to make it an effective feature.
Rating: An intriguing and eye opening doc about a little known subject that should have been way better than it was (5/10)
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