The Lost Weekend (1945 D. Billy Wilder)

The Lost Weekend gets as close as you can to the effects of alcoholism. Don Birnam, a writer who is left alone for the weekend by deceiving his girlfriend and his brother, does anything he can to get liquor in his system. Billy Wilder goes so deep into the pit that you personally feel the desperation that Don Birnam does as he downfalls.

The film doesn't start in the beginning of the story, but the middle. Birnam is already an alcoholic, but you have yet to see the worst of it. It draws you in because you know something terrible has already happened to the protagonist, yet you know there's a whole movie still to watch.

Birnam is surrounded by help and support by his girl and his brother but he fails to grasp that love and shuts them out. However, the enemy gets the best of him during this extremely long weekend and it eats away at him to the point where he feels like he can't go on any longer.

The Lost Weekend is a great drama filled with phenomenal acting and directing. It reels you in to get a look at what desperation really feels like when you get the the very bottom and don't know how to come back up from it. It is one of the most painfully honest films I have ever seen. I highly recommend it to everyone.