The True Story Behind Tom Holland's War Movie Cherry

War movies centering on real-life events and offering a clear view of the daunting reality of combat have always and still continue to play a valuable role in history and society. They can often reveal truths and teach lessons, turning them into emotionally challenging masterpieces. The Russo brothers wanted to add to this important genre and picked a captivating and thought-provoking story.

Despite being known for his outstanding portrayal of light-hearted roles, the Russo brothers believed that Spider-Man actor, Tom Holland, has much more in store than that. Clearly, they were right, because Holland delivered an incredible performance in the crime drama film, Cherry, which was released in 2021. Circling around the topics of America’s opioid crisis and PTSD in war veterans, Cherry is not an easy watch. Keeping this in mind, it makes it even more important to take a look at the real story behind Cherry.

What Is Cherry About?

The Russo brothers’ movie offers space to the story of a young man, who, in the movie, is introduced as Cherry. While, at first, Cherry is living his life as a rather normal college student, his day-to-day life quickly takes a turn for the worse. Love and heartbreak mark his time at school before he decides to put an end to his misery and escape by enlisting as a medic in the army. Once he embarks on his mission and the reality of the horrendous situation in the war zone in Iraq hits him right in the face, his mental health is extremely challenged. Multiple life-changing events severely disturb him, leading him straight into drug addiction when he arrives back home.

With finding comfort in drugs and even causing his partner to join his self-destructive behavior, money issues trigger the next downfall. Cherry commits numerous crimes to bring more drugs home, and his continuous race down the wrong side of the road puts him and his partner in increasingly dangerous situations. Fed by intense action, Cherry is an emotional rollercoaster racing through the depths of an army veteran’s mind and imagination.

The Inspiration Behind Cherry

In society, ex-soldiers suffering from PTSD due to the harrowing events they had to face are often left in a dark corner, where they won’t take up much space or reveal the impact war has on humans. Far too often, there isn’t enough room given to veterans in order to express their struggles with mental health, and it is no rarity that many can’t even begin to understand the horrors of fighting for their lives in combat. This makes it especially hard for survivors to take up space and share what they have been through.

Nico Walker is an army veteran who sat down and put his past and trauma from his time as a soldier onto paper. His semi-autobiographical novel, Cherry, was used as the foundation for the movie of the same name. While the book doesn’t fulfill all the requirements for an autobiography, it is still heavily based on real-life events, rooted in the author’s own experiences. Cherry, whose name is taken from army slang referring to a new, young soldier who is just starting his first mission, shares numerous aspects of Walker’s life, making the novel as well as the movie a valuable and vulnerable life lesson.

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The Truth Behind Cherry’s Drug Addiction and His Girlfriend

In the movie, Cherry’s one beacon of light and hope is his girlfriend, Emily. The warmth he received from his partner threatens to dim though, when Emily comes clean about wanting to further her studies and moving away. To follow her passion, she calls their relationship quits and his immediate response is to join the army and find distraction in his new tasks as a medic.

However, upon realizing how much they mean to each other, the two of them get married before his deployment. After his return, Cherry falls straight into the torment of a severe drug addiction, frantically trying to cope with his anxiety. He leans heavily on OxyContin, which was prescribed to him by a doctor, and increasingly starts to rely on its numbing effects. Frustration is eating up Emily, as she struggles to deal with Cherry’s addiction, leading her to fall into the same hole. The two of them become obsessed with using OxyContin and eventually also introduce heroin.

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Cherry’s struggle with his drug addiction and the transformation from Emily from being a beacon of hope to equally suffering as an addict are prominent aspects of the character’s storyline, but they don’t fully comply with Walker’s reality. The author didn’t really have an Emily in his life, which, in a further sense, is a reminder that his real-life situation was even more strenuous than the one of Cherry‘s titular character. What stems from his real experiences is that he truly suffered from severe drug abuse, trying to find comfort in escaping the pain and getting a high far away from reality.

The Real Reason Behind Cherry Becoming a Bank Robber

Cherry’s addiction leads him to take one step further into the world of crime, as he becomes a bank robber in order to upkeep his drug supply. The same transformation applies to Walker, but it is important to mention that he committed these robberies simply due to his severe drug addiction. He desperately needed the funds to continue his drug abuse, which even led him to put himself in huge danger and continuously break the law. Over four months, Walker got his money from 10 different heists, stealing around $40,000 in total. To him, there was no other option, since his addiction heavily impacted his decision-making processes.

Ultimately, Walker spent nine years in prison, where he dedicated a significant part of his days to writing his novel and reading, and was eventually set free, three years before his intended release date, in 2020. The novel as well as the movie Cherry are a reminder that there are millions of stories out there worthy of being heard, but even this one story can significantly impact a viewer’s life, break with taboos, or offer comfort to those who might suffer from similar issues. Stream on Apple TV+.