6 Balloons is a new movie available for streaming from Netflix that has gotten strong reviews for its hard look at addiction. The title is a reference to heroin, and Variety writes that the film is “by turns intensely naturalistic and brutally stylized,” and that it “mercilessly turns screws and escalates dread while spinning a worst-case scenario about the fraying family ties between a heroin addict and his sister, who’s buckling under the weight…”
6 Balloons stars Abbi Jacobson (Broad City), and Dave Franco, who are both known for their comedic skills, and it’s clearly against typecasting. While it’s a great way to show off your dramatic chops, playing an addict is usually not fun, as Franco can attest.
Franco told People, “This role is very different from anything I’ve played in the past, and that in and of itself was a huge draw from me. I was very nervous for many reasons. First off, I knew that I was going to go through a huge physical transformation. I ended up losing about 25 pounds in a very, very short period of time…I was depressed while we were filming this movie.”
Franco added that his wife, Alison Brie, noticed the difference when he got home. “My wife called me out and said you’re not yourself, you’re not fun to be around. I said I’m f-ing starving, what do you want from me?”
What Franco also feels sets 6 Balloons apart is, “We’ve all seen movies about heroin addicts before, but I’d never seen one about a heroin addict who came from an upper-middle-class family and seemingly has no reason to resort to these hard drugs.”
