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OPENS IN THEATERS AUGUST 31, 2007
Based on actual events. On the edges of Las Vegas, 17-year-old Andrew's life is spiraling out of control. Unable to cope with the loss of his father, Andrew's descent into drugs and violence is gaining momentum, and the once promising young man is now headed for self-destruction (in what Variety calls "an especially blistering performance by Monty Lapica"). Andrew's mother (Golden Globe nominee Diane Venora), helpless to control her son and fighting an addiction of her own, refuses to watch idly as her only child destroys himself. As a last resort, she hires a private company to forcibly kidnap and confine him in a locked-down and corrupt psychiatric hospital. As Andrew is subjected to the secret physical and emotional abuses of the program something inside him is re-awakened. He must somehow get free to save what's left of his life, but to do that, he knows he must first face his own demons head-on. Self-Medicated is an extraordinary portrait of redemption and personal triumph over hardship that "packs a startling punch" (Variety). "Raw, unmannered intensity ... Self-Medicated is just what the doctor ordered" (Hollywood Reporter). With 39 international film awards, Self-Medicated is the most award-winning independent film of the year.
Brightway Adolescent Hospital in St. George, Utah was a teen alcohol and treatment facility which was closed in March 1998 after a state investigation found it in violation of several regulations, including failure to report the alleged abuse of a child transferred there from another Teen Help facility. Officials also found Brightway appeared to be rubber-stamping recommend- ations that teens be sent to overseas facilities like Paradise Cove, the facility Monty Lapica was being transported to until his dramatic escape while changing planes at the Honolulu Airport.
Paradise Cove was an American owned all-boys behavior modification camp located in what used to be called Western Samoa (now called the Independent State of Samoa). Opened in 1996, the facility was one of several programs affiliated with a Utah based consortium known as the World Wide Association of Specialty Schools and Programs (WWASPS). Now defunct, the program quietly ceased operations in 2000 on the heels of an investigation by the Samoan goverment into allegations of physical, emotional and mental abuse.
"Want Your Kid to Disappear?" explores the secret world of "transporters" quasi-security officers hired by parents to abduct their children and deliver them to private reform schools by any means necessary - including handcuffed.
Monty Lapica was 24-years-old when he wrote, directed and finished starring in his debut motion picture Self Medicated and while this is certainly impressive it’s not the most remarkable thing to know here. What’s truly astonishing is that he was 17 when he lived the reality behind this harrowing tale of drug abuse, adolescent angst, rebellion and redemption, and it was in the middle of those dark days he realized he needed to tell his story on film.
“I had a fantasy,” explains Lapica via phone from Los Angeles, “about making a movie to expose the [Brightway] facility and get them shut down. It was kind of nonrealistic, because it took about seven years from the time I was locked in the place to the time I was able to make the film and they were shut down prior to that happening. I was happy about that but still wanted to make
[Self Medicated]. That was where the idea for making the film originally started.”
Brightway is a locked-down adolescent hospital where the movie’s main character Andrew, blisteringly portrayed by the filmmaker, is forcibly sent by his mother Louise (Diane Venora) after she determines she can no longer control her son’s out-of-control behavior. This for-profit institution was recently closed by government authorities after reports of abuse forced them to investigate and Lapica felt it was important to make the scenes inside the hospital as accurate as possible.
“Brightway is pretty accurate as far as the day-to-day depiction of what it was like to be in that facility,” he says matter-of-factly. “The characters are fictional, there was no primary antagonist or bad guy like Dan that Andrew butts heads with, but I needed him for a plot device. But, as far as the daily activities of the place, that was pretty much like it was when I was there what with the group therapy and some of the punishments they would dole out if you went against their rules.”
Some of those punishments included things like sleep depravation, isolation and forced standing, elements more attune to torture then to therapy for drug abuse and delinquent therapy. And yet, the freshman filmmaker never indulges in the voyeuristic aspects of this horror, never sensationalizes and exploits the scenario for cheap visceral thrills instead choosing to paint an honest portrait which allows audiences to make up their own minds as to the merits (or hopefully lack thereof) of what is going on.
“It would have been really easy to just make them out to be complete monsters,” answers Lapica bluntly. “I wanted to try and make it as an honest as depiction as I could because they weren’t people, they weren’t bad people at all. In fact, they had really good intentions. It was their approach that was flawed, and the ownership of the company I have to question their motives.”
True enough, but where so many films about abuse can paint the instructional experience as unabashedly evil full of villains and reprobates straight out of central B-movie casting, Self Medicated chooses to look at the caregivers at Brightway as honest human beings who really do want to help but just don’t know how. “I think it was more about the bottom line,” he responds immediately. “They were subject to very little oversight and I think some of the people they hired to deal with the kids who needed a lot of help weren’t qualified to do so. I think they wanted to help and their intentions were good but their approach was misguided and I didn’t agree with it.”
I asked Lapica about the night he was forcibly removed from his home in the middle of the night by a couple of the hospital’s security guards, about his feelings towards his mother for allowing them to do this to him. “I was in complete disbelief that this was happening,” says the filmmaker without hesitation. “I couldn’t believe it. Seventeen years old, feel like an adult, and for this company to come into your bedroom and remove you in the middle of the night and tell you they’re going to be shipping you to an island in the South Pacific where you will remain until you are legal age that’s just a tough, tough pill to swallow.”
“I couldn’t believe it. I’d never heard of anything like that before. I didn’t know that these types of programs existed and was just in a state of disbelief that this was happening to me. When you’re 17 that’s your senior year in high school and that’s pretty much your universe. To be removed from that setting, your peers, your friends, your family, it’s like your life is yanked out from under you and I was determined to get free and get back to my comfort zone.”
A case could be made that Lapica’s time in Brightway and his experience of trying to escape and return to his normal everyday life is actually what saved it, that had he not lived through these events he might not have stopped using drugs, finished school, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Loyola Marymount or made this film. “In the context of the movie certainly,” he answers, “but in the context of real life, not so much. It was just sort of an interesting bump in the road that was sort of a bizarre experience, but afterward when I got out it was back to my norm, my sort of out-of-control norm, before I changed.”
“But, in the context of the movie the timeframe takes place over a much condensed setting and I needed to shorten that period instead of having it stretch out over years which was the case in real life. I needed to have a transformation occur within this character in a relatively short amount of time, but it definitely was one of the catalysts that allowed Andrew to see he needed to make some adjustments and some changes in his own life.”
Considering the subject matter and the fact the based-on-fact screenplay for Self Medicated was written by a relative novice, did Lapica ever allow himself to imagine he’d not only see his film made but that he’d direct and star in it as well? “Knowing what I know now having made a film,” he chuckles, “I must have been incredibly naive and I think that is what I had going for me.”
“It was incredibly difficult to convince people to invest in a first time director and in film school I didn’t make films, my background was in screenwriting. I had no short film or thesis film I could show which could prove I could make a movie. I had never acted in a movie. But, I think at the end of the day my enthusiasm for the material and for the script was able to sway people into believing I could somehow pull it off.”
With all that in mind, I couldn’t help that the young man’s first day on the set had to be quite surreal. “I’ll never forget it,” says Lapica with another laugh. “Walking out on the set and seeing this crew of people, all of these giant production trucks, and knowing I am the one man who is supposed to be running that show. It was very intimidating. But, after the first couple of takes the butterflies dissipated and I sort of fell into a groove and the rest was pretty smooth sailing.”
Granted, the director certainly made sure to cover all the bases assembling his cast and crew. Not only did he have Venora there, veteran character actors Michael Bowen (Kill Bill: Vol. 1) and Greg Germann (Ally McBeal) were also onset, while cinematographer Denis Maloney (The Contender) and composer Anthony Marinelli (The Man from Elysian Fields) helped keep things solid on the technical side of things.
“I couldn’t be happier with the job everybody did to support my efforts,” states Lapica with obvious pride. “The DP, Dennis Maloney, is just incredible. When I ask people to guess how much the budget was they inevitably guess high and that is such a credit to his skill. He really gave the movie a much ‘bigger picture’ look then you would typically get with a budget of [our] size.”
“The score is one of my favorite aspects of the movie. Anthony Marinelli is brilliant and it is all just him and his amazing talent. He can just look at a scene and feel it, play the music as he’s watching it and it just comes to him. It’s incredible to watch him at work, to see him look at a scene and sit down at his piano and watch him just play the music he feels compliments it. It just flows right out of him. It’s remarkable to watch.”
“The cast, they just did an excellent job. I couldn’t be happier with the performances that are delivered. I feel like I just got really lucky and a lot of things, particularly the performances and some of the technical contributions from the crew, they just fell into place. It felt like it meant to be. I so easily could have hired somebody else or gone another way and it might not have turned out the way it all did.”
One of the most thrilling moments in the film happens just after Andrew has escaped from Brightway and has returned home, confronting his mother for involvement in his incarceration. The scene crackles with electricity Venora, so memorable in films like Bird, Heat and The Insider, delivering a searing portrait of motherly angst that nearly broke my heart.
“I think she’s just brilliant,” concurs Lapica. “I think she is incredibly underrated. It was really cool working with her. I’ve seen the woman perform in some of my favorite films countless times, so to finally meet her and then have the next thing be that I’m directing her in this story that is based on experience I had in my life it’s really cool and yet at the same time kind of bizarre. I feel very honored to have worked with her and I would love to work with her again someday. She’s just incredible.”
But, as he says, this was a movie based on his own life and upon his own experiences, so scenes like the ones he shared with Venora could not have been very easy for the first-time actor. “I always felt nervous about trying to play this role,” Lapica responds. “Although a lot of this is based on real life experience it is one thing to write about it but it’s quite another to create it and have it be believable and authentic.”
The filmmaker laughs for a moment as if these recollections are somewhat embarrassingly humorous for him before he continues. “I was looking at the script one day and I recognized that I was supposed to cry in front of a crew four or five different times in this movie. That was sort of the one unknown variable. I felt confident in my abilities to direct a movie but acting was just completely unknown because I really didn’t have any experience. So, that was really scary and also really fun. There was a real sense of adventure in doing that.”
All of which has to make the recognition and awards the film has accrued at the various film festivals it has screened at over the last year that much more rewarding. From Rome to Staten Island, Australia to Charlotte, Self Medicated has garnered 39 different accolades including a slew of audience prizes, jury awards and acting honors for both Lapica and Venora, all of which has to give the young man reason to feel proud.
“I never imagined it would win so many awards,” he says, genuine unabashed shock dripping from his syllables like a gently falling rain. “I was just hoping that it would turn out all right. I mean, I was taking a big risk and I hoped that all the people who believed in me and supported me and afforded me the opportunity to make the film wouldn’t feel let down. But, I never imagined it would go to festivals and win awards. It was just so cool to be able to experience [that], to show the film to so many different audiences across the country and even in Europe and Australia, and have [them] respond to the film.”
“The film isn’t for everybody. Some people don’t like it and are put off by the very raw depiction of characters expressing their emotions. It’s a little dark at times. But the people who really do like the film seem to be really affected by it on a deep emotional level and it’s incredibly rewarding and gratifying to talk to [them]. Last night we had a screening in L.A. and I stayed after for over an hour just talking to people who had lined up to talk about how it touched them personally. It’s really a gift to be able to influence people in that way.”
In a way, the success of the film and the impact it has had upon audiences makes Lapica a role model and that isn’t a thing the filmmaker takes lightly. “That’s something I don’t think anyone would have ever predicted,” he responds. “Especially me. That I would ever have the opportunity to have a positive influence over people that’s just really cool, I feel really good about that. For the longest time I was only a negative influence upon my peers and it is nice to have something that touches people in a positive way.”
“I always felt you only realize how dangerous the situation was in retrospect. At [17], I felt like I had a firm grip on my life and I was very much in control where it was all heading but that couldn’t have been further from the case. When I look back on it I see how out-of-control I was and how lucky I am to be here today, to not be dead or in prison somewhere. I lost three of my closest friends to overdoses and that easily could have been me because I was the more reckless one out of the group.”
Which now makes being here over seven years later to get his story out all the more important to the filmmaker. “I feel blessed to be here,” Lapica states plainly. “I am fortunate to be able to tell a story that could potentially influence people, especially young people, in a positive way”.
“I mean, I never set out to make a message film, I just wanted to tell an original story and have it be entertaining which is what I think any director wants. But if there is something that I wish audience members would take away from the film it would just be an understanding of the power of love and support from family and friends, how much that can help people who are going through difficult times. If they come away discovering that I think it would be great.”
Determined to save her son from destroying his once bright future and not knowing what else to do, Monty Lapica's mother hires a private company to kidnap and confine him in an abusive treatment facility from which he escapes not once but twice. Forced to confront troubling issues of her own or risk losing her son and only child forever, she agrees to let him come home and work together on their issues as a family.
"At once edgy, personal, affectionate, wise and funny - Self Medicated pulls us into the darkest corners of the human spirit to reveal surprising pockets of hope and inspiration. An important film that is as entertaining as it is mesmorizing Self Medicated shines a spotlight on the teen help industry exposing in raw, intimate detail the dehumanizing and tortuous effects of confining children in money-making institutions ruled by fear and intimidation.
