Putty Hill.

If in all honesty you were not told that Matthew Porterfield's second film was a feature film, I'm convinced you would think you were watching a documentary! It even goes as far has having the director asking the characters questions which are answered direct to camera. Putty Hill (2010) deals with what could be described as the failure of the American dream. Cory dies of a heroin overdose in an abandoned house in Baltimore and we witness interviews with family and friends that make up the community that has to deal with the young lads untimely death and his subsequent funeral.

The director uses mainly non-professional actors who play themselves, which gives an added touch of reality and although Porterfield is credited with writing the film, most of the dialogue seems to have been improvised. It was shot in 12 days in a run down neighborhood in Baltimore where the director was born and brought up. He describes his film as 'an amalgam of traditional forms of documentary and narrative realism', certainly not a story in the traditional sense. A worthwhile low budget independent film that's interesting but does need patience, not an easy film to like!