Bully

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/15/12 at 9:00pm

I saw it this morning after some debating whether or not it was something I really wanted to see. I'm glad I did but man, it hit me hard. This one's going to sit with me for quite a while. It was 95 excruciating minutes that had me in tears from pretty much the very first frame until the last. I understand some of the less kind reviews saying it's really just a PSA in the form of a movie which had me concerned before seeing it, but looking back there is no other way to tell these stories. This IS a PSA and the filmmakers should be proud of it, as they have hopefully started (or shed more light on an ongoing discussion about this epidemic) a dialogue that will reach an enormous number of children, parents and school employees.

After the one child tells his mother the kids who beat him up are his friends and she tells him they're not to which he replies "If you tell me they're not my friends then I don't have any friends" was a punch in my gut and I let out this gasp/cry as my heart just shattered. Typing this it's making me tear up thinking about him and the others.

I'm curious to other reactions from people who've seen it.

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 4/15/12 at 9:05pm

Thanks for the review Jordan. I am planning on seeing it this week and I'm thinking of taking my niece and nephew (ages 12 and 13). I'll post my thoughts afterwards.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 4/15/12 at 9:35pm

I was trying to see it in LA a couple of weeks ago, but it was in such limited release. It was playing in an area I had never been to before.

Jordan, do you feel that filmmakers should have stopped what happened on the bus?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/15/12 at 9:58pm

That's a tough question and one I asked myself while watching it. But in the end I think, no. This kid is picked on enough just imagine what they would do to him the next day if the grown ups stepped in. Plus as filmmakers it would have negated the entire point of them being there, as awful as that sounds. I think they did the right thing by turning the footage over, though (although little good that did).

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 7:54pm

I finally got to see Bully today. Since I left the cinema, I can't stop thinking about it. I brought my niece and nephew and this movie sparked some very interesting conversations for the ride home. They loved the movie as much as I did and both of them were as frustrated as I was about the lack of involvement by the principal. I couldn't believe it when she said the kids on the bus were "as good as gold".

Jordan, did you see the rated R version? If so, I was wondering if they edited out some of the last bus ride scene in order to give it a PG-13 rating. Once the kid started punching Alex, they quickly ended the scence and said it was too violent to show and that they showed the unedited footage to his parents. I was curious if they deleted this from the movie because we saw the PG-13 version.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 8:26pm

The movie was released unrated, which is what theyre showing here in NYC. I wasn't aware of a watered down PG-13 version.

[clever name]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 9:23pm

I can't even get through the trailer without losing it. There is no way I could watch the whole movie. It just kills me.

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 11:54pm

That's right it was unrated, not rated R and was released unrated in limited release in NYC and CA. Last week when it opened in wider release, they edited some parts to give it a PG-13 rating. I was under the impression they only deleted 3 uses of the "f word" to obtain the PG-13 rating. I just felt the bus scene ended abrubtly when I saw it today and wondered if that scence was also edited for the PG-13 version. I live in Boston so I never had the opportunity to see the unrated version.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 3:10am

I know I would bawl my eyes out watching this. I do think that it is a very important message though. Didn't the one little boy commit suicide? My son would lose it watching that. He is so sensitive to stuff like that. But he's only 8. Do you think he's too young to see it?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 11:32am

I have a LOT of questions after seeing the movie last night. It was me and my boyfriend and two male-female couples seated together in a big multiplex where it opened yesterday for some reason. One of the couples left about 20 minutes in, the other about 10 minutes later. The first couple had motion sickness from the handheld camera work. Spoilerishy discussion follows:

I know documentary filmmakers make a choice to include narration or not, talking heads or not, title cards or not. I could probably find the answers I am looking for if I visited the movie's website but this is just my response to what I saw onscreen. But they opted to include nothing, except for one title card about deciding to show the footage to parents and administrators.

But HOW did they get the footage? Was it shot undercover somehow? The first scene of Alex at the bus stop, clearly the kids are aware someone else is there besides the three of them, since they look in the direction of the camera. Where was the camera? Who was operating it?

Was there a fixed hidden camera on the school bus? Not the one in the little girl goes insane story, but the Alex story. There is camera movement. How did that get that footage?

Also, unlike Lena Dunham on HBO's "Girls," they obviously knew it was important not to present an all-white story. But the story of that young black girl, while deeply moving seemed different than the others, it was hard to draw parallels.

Another thing I wondered about, with Alex's parents, was there any help FOR Alex about his issues? I mean, clearly he's on an autism spectrum, but having his relatively patient mother being frustrated about his uncommunicativeness and lack of friends couldn't possibly have helped the matter. Granted, he shouldn't be bullied for any reason. But if his own sister says her friends find him creepy and his mom says everybody thinks he's weird, maybe he could use some outside help!

I was deeply moved by Tyler's father as well as the rather poetic Wrangler wearing dad with all the animal heads on the wall, and the father of Kelby. Those three stories had insight, and tragedy and pain and a teeny bit of hope.

But I am still left scratching my head about how we saw what we saw.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 11:40am

It's interesting you brought that up because I was watching it thinking "are only white midwestern kids bullied" when they introduced her story. It WAS different but an important different. It was another side to what bullying can cause and was just as important as the others and was really upsetting. I think I felt worse for her than a lot of the others for some reason. I can't imagine the amount of constant abuse someone would have to suffer in order to do something like that.

As for the cameras at the bus stop and on the bus, I don't think kids (bullys especially) care if there are cameras. They already think what they're doing is cool so why not get it on film? Kids will do some STUPID SH*T in front of cameras.

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 2:37pm

That's a tough question Stockard. I think it depends on each child and how they would handle the subject matter. If your 8 year old son would be sensitive to the subject of suicide and he would be bothered by it, I probably would not take him. My niece and nephew are 12 and 13 years old. There are two kids that commit suicide as a result from being bullied. One of them is either 11 or 12 years old and the other one is 17. All three of us found it bothersome when they showed the closet that one of the kids hung himself in. There is a lot of discussion throughout the film about suicide.

The first thing my nephew mentioned after the movie was how come they only focused on midwestern towns? Don't they realize kids of all races are bullied everywhere in this country? That's coming from a 12 year old. The hand held camera shaking didn't bother me as much as the camera adjusting it's focus throughout the movie.

[DRSisLove]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 7:21pm

I saw it last weekend, and was moderately disappointed. I think as a PSA it succeeded a little, but everyone is going nuts over needing to see this movie, which got me into the theater in the first place.

There was no real resolution, and call to action for the audience, besides the point that was hammered in about how bad bullying is... but I'm pretty sure everyone knew that going in.

I'm a teacher, and I see this every day. Not to the extreme that the movie displayed it, but I had just hoped it would have helped me with some intervention strategies with my own class, rather than highlighting how ridiculous that one administrator (vice principal?) looked. I hope she was fired after the way she "polititioned" the family (best line of the movie, by far).