The City Addicted to Crystal Meth is a British documentary by Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux

Louis Sebastian Theroux is an English broadcaster best known for his Gonzo style journalism on the television series Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met.... His career started off in journalism and bears influences of notable writers in his family such as his father, Paul Theroux and...

. It was televised on 9 August 2009. Theroux filmed his documentary in Fresno, California

Fresno, California

Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...

 which has one of the highest number of crystal meth users in the United States.

Reception

The documentary had mixed reviews. The Times said "Theroux risks becoming the Alan Whicker de nos jours, a tourist with a typewriter, peering into these other lives but rarely getting dirty himself."

The Dominion Post criticised Louis Theroux interviewing method "...an increasingly grim-faced Theroux admitted he was at risk of becoming desensitised to the moving tide of human misery where the stories were a horrid template to be fitted over each twisted face."

The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

called the work "an extraordinary film, a sad portrait of a very different California"