Review:
The Basketball Diaries focuses on Jim Carroll’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) battle with drug addiction. Jim is a star on his unbeatable basketball team and has dreams of pursuing a basketball career post high school. Unfortunately, this dream is shattered when Jim is introduced to heroin. Jim’s world starts to spiral out of control as his addiction to heroin takes over him and he begins stealing and robbing with his friends in order to afford his drugs. Jim’s mother can no longer handle him and he is kicked out of her house and left to fend for himself on the streets in Manhattan, New York. Thankfully, Jim is picked up by an old friend, Reggie, who rehabilitates him and brings him back to life.

The movie should be intended for a mature audience as it has profanity, violence, and nudity. Watching the movie can help counselors and parents get a grasp on the world of addiction through the lens of an adolescent as well as a parent as it also shows the damaging effects it can have on a person’s support system, Jim’s heartbroken mother. A counselor can use the film as a preventative measure to discuss the ramifications of drug abuse. This movie could also be helpful for clients who have a drug addiction or are in a family where drugs have been abused. Topics that may arise for discussion while watching the film are drug abuse and the signs of addiction, family systems, relapse, and recovery.