Leslie (Andrea Riseborough) is an alcoholic who having been evicted realises that no one trusts her enough to give her a break anymore. Everyone she knows has been burnt by her spiralling addition and that includes her nineteen year old son James (Owen Teague). 

To Leslie opens with a montage of photographs of Leslie’s life before her addiction and her joyous moment of winning $190,000 on the lottery where she pulls in her then thirteen year old son in front of the camera to have him celebrate in her joy. Cutting to six years later Leslie is nearly at rock bottom. The money is gone, she has been evicted and she spends her time trying to find somewhere to crash and find men who will buy her drinks. 

We see the relationships that she has destroyed with her son and her friends and family. And then she gets a break. Sweeney (Marc Maron) runs a motel in the town and when he runs Leslie out of the place for sleeping rough in their grounds he takes pity on her and hires her as a maid. We will then watch Leslie battle with her addiction and withdrawal and learn more about why Sweeney would be so open to helping an alcoholic homeless woman he has never met. 

To Leslie is everything that you would expect from an indie film about addiction. The first half is difficult to watch as we see the depths that Leslie is in. The withdrawal scenes feature the sort of sweating and vomiting that you will have seen in many other films. But what elevates the whole picture and indeed what prevented it from disappearing in amongst the many other worthy indie films available is Riseborough’s performance. One which resulted in many other famous actors championing it to the point that she received a Best Actress Oscar Nomination. 

Riseborough of course has always been a brilliant actress in an eclectic range of films, so frankly it seems only fair that she get plaudits for what is an exceptional performance. The pain and anguish in her face as she struggles with her character’s inability to control her urge for alcohol is phenomenal and she makes the difficult to watch story eminently more interesting. 

Without this performance though it might be fair to say that To Leslie may have blended in with many other indie dramas of its ilk.