An alcoholic runs into her estranged mother at an A.A. meeting.


LET LIV is used with permission from Erica Rose and Olivia Levine. Learn more at https://ericarosefilms.com.


Liv is attending an A.A. meeting for the first time, with the encouragement of her new girlfriend Marty. Liv is apprehensive and nervous about what to expect, saying that she doesn't need the help of an organization to address her problems. She arrives at the meeting, and she's snarky and judgmental at first. But the stories shared by others begin to draw her in.

But then Liv gets a difficult surprise: her longestranged mother, Judy, arrives at the meeting. The collision brings up painful memories for Liv, who was abandoned by Judy years ago at a crisis point. And now she's forced to confront her painful memories, as well as the scope of her addiction.

Directed by Erica Rose and written by Olivia Levine, who also plays the lead role of Liv, this powerful short explores the intergenerational nature of alcohol addiction. Often addiction is portrayed as an isolated experience, but through the thorny yet vulnerable portrayal of a fraught motherchild relationship, it explores how alcoholism in different generations makes the recovery of both parent and child even more complicated.

Wellwritten and luminously crafted, the film has the muted, slightly gritty look of the city, where Liv and Marty sit on a stoop and debate over attending the A.A. meeting. Liv establishes her skepticism and reluctance, believing that the program won't work for her. But when she enters the world of the meeting, the film also shifts into a warmer, shadowy register, creating a visual "safe space" that nevertheless possesses some murkier dimensions for Liv, who slowly warms up to the meeting, particularly when she hears the moving personal experiences from her fellow meetinggoers.

But that sense of murkiness comes to the fore and gains clarity when Liv's estranged mother Judy arrives late to the meeting, immediately changing Liv's demeanor into one of shock and anger. As an actor, Levine doesn't hold back on the violent emotional whiplash she experiences, as her shock turns into rage, directed first at her mother and then at the others. It's a moment that captures the pain and trauma underlying the anger, with an authenticity matched by actor Christine Taylor as Judy. Audiences might know Taylor from comedies like ZOOLANDER, but here she reveals a raw emotional depth as a flawed mother and a recovering alcoholic.

Riveting, compelling and unvarnished in its emotions, LET LIV ends with the conversation that Liv and Judy needed to have a long time ago. Masterfully written, it reveals how alcohol once bonded the pair at their lowest. But it also shows how the disease of alcoholism ravages relationships in families, especially when the imperatives of the recovering addict are at odds with the duties of parenting and the aching need of a child. It captures just how addiction can be woven into a family's story when the pain of a troubled parentchild relationship fuels an acute emotional agony that is blunted with the selfmedication that alcohol offers. Recovery isn't an easy path for anyone, but it's made more complex when it's closely bound to the addiction of another family member. Yet the film ends with some hope: mother and daughter have both caused one another immense pain, but they also begin to connect as they understand how hardwon the triumphs can be.