Heroin Town
4.5 Stars
Directed by: Josh Goldbloom
Not Rated
In 2003, "60 Minutes II" devoted a show to Willimantic, Connecticut. Dan Rather exposed the small town as drug capital: a place where almost everyone is an addict, and where drugs can be bought on the street "like [at] a supermarket." At the center of this expos‚ was the Hotel Hooker, named for its original owner but which, according to "60 Minutes", has taken on a very different meaning since. Dan Rather and team blew in and out of Willimantic, leaving behind a population who felt demeaned, angry, and betrayed. Director/producer Josh Goldbloom's first film, Heroin Town, gives the people of Willimantic a chance to fight back.
Through a series of strikingly intimate interviews, the townspeople of Willamantic are able to tell the world about the town they love. The bulk of the film, however, is devoted to getting to know the residents of the Hotel Hooker, some of whom are drug addicts but most of whom seem to be good people struggling to survive. The film chronicles the hotel's fight to keep its ownership, and its plight to save its residents from getting thrown out on the street with nowhere else to go.
Goldbloom's film allows the public to see the real people behind the hotel walls, and has given those people a chance to prove that, contrary to popular television's opinion, they are not monsters. In fact, it is the utter humanity of these people that makes them so remarkable, and the overwhelming sense that Goldbloom has fallen for them as much as the audience has that makes Heroin Town so magnificent.
