better than I thought, tells it like it is--definitely worth seeing--tells

Rating: 8/10 (5 November 2010)

I went into this movie with various negative critical reviews on my mind. Imagine my surprise when the movie turned out to be decently written, which is more than I can say for most movies these days; well acted throughout; very well cast; gritty in a realistic rather than a sensationalized way; and incredibly brave throughout.
In fact, I felt this movie was so very good that I began to wonder whether the critics who saw it reacted to the realistic nature of the violence depicted in this movie and decided to hate the movie instead of hating the violence that exists in this world. We live in a society that does indeed make sociopaths of small children at the hands of cruel, misogynistic and dictatorial fathers; where children are often judged to be 'exactly like' delinquent parents, regardless of whether this is a fair impression or whether the child is old enough to truly reveal themselves yet; where countless children across the U.S. are forced to perform in 'homemade' porn movies at the hands of the adults given responsibility for caring for us.
This was definitely a movie of the twenty-first century, a coming-of-age film of a sort that reveals our generation's tendency to look at the violence around us unflinchingly with a numbness and callousness born of being raised surrounded by horrors on a scale previous generations could never have dreamed up in their worst nightmares. The film depicted these horrors realistically, as well as showing our tendency to respond by either 'tuning out' using drugs, self-abuse or becoming bullies ourselves. The only other choice we seem to recognize is to become overly sensitive and to live our entire lives trying to make everything better for anyone who happens to cross paths with us. We try to make things okay again for our parents, for our friends and anyone else we happen to feel responsible for. We become overly sensitive and take on an inordinate amount of guilt, more than our fair share, because no one else seems inclined to take responsibility for anything at all. These oversensitive types overcompensate and wind up hurting everyone in our quest for justice if we do not temper this quest with a good dose of humor and self-awareness--and joy.
I am deeply appreciative of the way this film takes apart the concept of giving to other people to one's own detriment as having anything to do with morality or a genuine desire to give. When people give to others in way that hurts us, we are simply trying to feel superior.
This film also was very accurate in its depiction of
I think this film could have used some sort of consultant on female behavior. The woman lead--Amy Grant's character--was firmly characterized by her role as the lead man's fantasy of what she was like, rather than having any relationship to what women actually act like. At times, witnessing her anger, this was refreshing. At times, though, knowing how traumatized people tend to behave, I found it frustrating to witness a woman who maintained her independent thought and sense of self in the face of such cruelty. People may well maintain their spirit, their will to change and desire to control their own reality. However, most women do not step out of such extremely abusive homes with such hearty senses of self that they then impassionately defened. Indeed, what mostly happens is precisely the opposite.
All in all, this was a very excellent movie with aspects people genuinely need to be exposed to. Thank God for movies like this one.