Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

slaphappy-76398 I am always blown away by how Tom Hardy uses his voice & body to become a character, fictional or non-fictional. I can't wait to see another film with him in it...I've seen 'Mad Max:Fury Road', 'Dark Knight Rises', 'Inception' and 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', twice apiece. 'Legend' I have seen three times. He is an actor you just can't stop watching. I am very puzzled in the above list of plot keywords: pubic hair? male frontal nudity? Why are those the terms listed, instead of :alcoholism, addiction, friendship, childhood trauma? I do agree with the person who stated this a film most people should see. Addiction has a vice-like grip on large numbers of the globe at this time. This film could open eyes to how to navigate the social issue of addiction.

tohu777 The first reel of this film is very deceiving: you might well think that it's a kind of dramedy, a clichéd story of a do-gooder yuppie activist expanding his horizons and finding his humanity through an acquaintance with a very quirky homeless man. But it's absolutely nothing of the sort. To judge by interviews with BBC producers, the director, and writer Alexander Masters, the final film matches the intentions they had from the start, to make something that wasn't easy and which captured this man Stuart Shorter in all his complexity.Master's script is really compelling & tight. But it's the actors who drive the film: Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy together, more often than not in fairly tight sets merely talking. They were already both masters, back when this was filmed. Tom Hardy's role here bears a vague resemblance to his work in Nicolas Refn's film Bronson; though I'd say that this film is even bleaker and more harrowing than Refn's. The eruption of Stuart's pain and self- hate is shocking, and Hardy doesn't ever hold back. The performance compares well to that of Robin Williams' in The Fisher King. In both cases, the actor enters a state that shocks you into concern for them rather than sitting in admiration of a modulated performance. This is an incredibly bleak and brutal film, without the comfort of its having been a fiction.

estebangonzalez10 "My name is Psycho but you can call me Stuart if you want."Before his breakout role in Bronson, Tom Hardy showed his true potential in a small made for TV film, Stuart A Life Backwards. He co-stared along another relatively unknown at the time, Benedict Cumberbatch (at least outside of Great Britain). These are two huge A-list actors today who have starred as villains in blockbusters like Star Trek Into Darkness and The Dark Knight Rises among many other great films. So I was immediately attracted to this film when I heard it starred these two actors. It is a biography of a troubled alcoholic and homeless man named Stuart(Tom Hardy) who establishes a friendship with a writer and charity worker named Alexander (Benedict Cumberbatch). We've seen these dramatic films exploring similar issues of unlikely friendships done before, but Stuart gives it a unique twist by telling the story beginning from the back. Because lets face it when we first meet someone like Stuart we are shocked at their current condition and we take little time to try to figure out what may have caused this strange behavior. We see who the person is at the present and by establishing a relationship we slowly begin to uncover things about their past, and that is exactly how Alexander presents Stuart to the audience. Stuart is a rather unconventional character, and Tom Hardy plays him brilliantly. He is an alcoholic who suffers from violent outbreaks. He also has suicide tendencies and suffers from muscular dystrophy which has taken its toll on him. But most of the time Stuart is a kind man with a dry sense of humor. He tells his story in a rather funny way adding a tragicomic touch to this film. Despite the strong performances from Cumberbatch and Hardy the film works mostly because of the way the film is narrated. As we learn more about Stuarts past we begin to sympathize with him and realize where he is coming from. It isn't a great film, but it is solid and it showed the true potential these lead actors had. The film does feel a bit rushed at times and it suffers from trying to add a lot of information in only 90 minutes, making some scenes feel chopped and forced. Director David Attwood benefits mostly from this emotional true story and these two actors, who happened to be the main attraction for me and the reason why this film is getting some distribution currently on HBO. It isn't a perfect film, but it has a masterful physical performance delivered by Hardy who was just getting warmed up for his upcoming and breakout role in Bronson. I really loved the quirky approach the film took in telling this true story (which was actually based on the successful biography written by Alexander Masters), but it's far from being a perfect and memorable film. The animated scenes that Attwood decided to introduce to tell some parts of the story were a bit disturbing and took me out of the movie at times. But every time I was let down by these scenes, Tom Hardy showed up with another impressive scene and brought me right back in. It is a masterful performance and one that shows his unique talent as an actor. I am also thankful I watched this film with subtitles because sometimes it was difficult to understand what he was mumbling about, but it was still great voice work from his part. Cumberbatch played a more restricted character, but he also has some emotional scenes near the end where he proves he's a talented actor. It is a film worth checking out if you are a fan of these actors.

Afzal Shaikh As Mark Twain once said, 'Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction', and that is certainly the case in Stuart: A Life Backwards.A BBC Drama written by Alexander Masters, it is based on his acclaimed account of the real life of Stuart Shorter, a self-harming drug addict, career criminal (with a long history of violence), who is also homeless and suffers from muscular dystrophy.This film, made for BBC TV, directed by veteran filmmaker David Attwood, is a dramatisation which skillfully and sinuously reconstructs the events that culminated in Alexander Masters publishing Stuart's unconventional biography. In an early scene, Stuart provides Alexander with the insight into how to write his unconventional book, 'Do it backwards...Like a murder mystery...what murdered the boy I was?' So Alexander sets out in this mode, trying to piece together the depressing, shocking trajectory of Stuart's life. But, unexpected to both men, in the process Stuart and Alexander become part of each other's life, transgressing socio-cultural boundaries and evolving a genuine, if eccentric, friendship.This drama, unlike the majority of films based on extreme lives, does not simplify its subject, reducing its characters to two-dimensions eliciting cheap sentimentality. The characters in Stuart: A Life Backwards are not stripped of their complexities. Rather, they evince depth and subtlety. Stuart is not glamorised or victimised. He is vulgar, unfair, shockingly abusive, as well as sensitive, understanding and insightful. Nor is Masters made into a stock supporting character. He is at times the clear victim of middle class culture shock and has to fight his tendency to condescend. In short, they seem honest recreations of human beings.Tom Hardy engages as Stuart, giving a tough and intelligent performance, and recreates his character's extreme physical traits with little mannerism. Benedict Cumberbatch also rises to his own, different challenge as Stuart's friend and witness with understatement and subtlety.Stuart: A Life Backwards is a rare, droll, moving film that grows to understand the maddening complexity of life and subsequent near hopelessness in trying to find the factors behind someone's life. Instead, Stuart: A Life Backwards is a film about human diversity and the things we all share.