Devils: A Gateway to Recovery
After spending time with Devils, a short musical film about addiction and loss; it revealed its many faces. Devils is not your typical rap music video. In fact, one shouldn’t call it a music video at all. It is a film, and its message goes much deeper than music. The film starts off with one of its stars in a therapy office, describing his inability to catch up and outrace his struggles or “Devils.” The therapist begins doing a breathing exercise with him and this is when the film takes a turn.
We wind up following one of the other stars of the film as he is partying and celebrating an apparent promotion he received at work. We are introduced to Sean’s “Devils” which aren’t very clear at first, but as we spend more time with Sean, we begin to understand that his habits reel him into a much darker corner of his life.
Devils is based on a true story and real events that took place in the past of its stars. The film jumps between three stories, Sean’s, John’s, and John’s past when he was a child.
Janelle Yull, Greg Mays, and Carmine Grimaldi do a superb job building a personal relationship with its audience who can become easily engaged enough to cheer for them to continue their happy lives, but that feeling of impending doom hovers over their scenes whenever their happiness is in the foreground.
Sean’s battles are not always brought to the forefront, but it allows our imaginations to veer off and construct our own thoughts on the darkness that haunts his life in between the moments where the film visually delivers them. Sean’s moments in the film feel cold, alone, dark and vulnerable. Those feelings are skillfully shrouded in his ability to put on a smile even when you can clearly see he would rather cry.
John is cold, dismissive, aggressive and guarded. His attitude towards accepting help is complicated as he makes it very clear that he struggles to accept the fact he’s choosing to seek it. It takes a crucial moment in that journey to change him in a powerful and heartfelt scene that can make even the most emotionally unavailable person pick up a phone to call a person they love.
The music is personal, honest, well written and skillfully performed. It does not cause us to miss a beat in the story, and it’s catchy enough to make a person quickly add it to their playlist.
Devils is not a perfect film, but it’s a powerful film, and it makes it very clear that it’s meant to be as perfect as our ability to control the uncontrollable. It beautifully sends its message, it stands its ground, and it brings viewers various topics that everyone can relate to in one way or another.
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