Benjamin Flaherty’s ‘Shuffle’ Documentary Exposes America’s Rehab Industry | Trailer

Shuffle, directed by Benjamin Flaherty, captures the harrowing experiences of three people caught in the cycle of America’s rehab industry, exposing how profit often outweighs genuine recovery.

The film premiered at the SXSW Film & TV Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature. It was later screened at numerous film festivals such as Chagrin Documentary Film Festival and Vashon Island Film Festival.

Shuffle’s trailer was released on November 4 and is expected to make its theatrical debut early next year.

Here’s the synopsis:

Wrought with measured style and humanity, this quietly searing exposé of exploitation and fraud in the addiction treatment industry is a deeply affecting work of cinematic memoir and alarm. The director illuminates the insidiousness of the profit-driven, billion-dollar recovery business even as he brings compassion and urgency to his subjects, whose candid revelations are as heartbreaking as they are hopeful.

The film follows three subjects and includes numerous personal perspectives, including Flaherty’s, in order to reveal the cycle of recovery and relapse in a profit driven world.

Ahead of the film’s SXSW screening, Flaherty says, “Addiction is about as American as apple pie at this point, yet we don’t talk about it enough. There’s so much shame and stigma around it. So I’d love for as many people as possible to see the film. Let’s get it out there. Let’s start a conversation. We’d love to do a small theatrical release in conjunction with distribution on a streaming service.”

In their review, Variety wrote, “Shuffle rarely wavers in its humanistic focus. The result of Flaherty simply hearing out people like Cory, Nicole and Daniel is shattering confessions and crescendos, which imbues the film with the kind of urgency that no fact or figure could hope to.”

Watch the official trailer for Shuffle above.