It was compelling. It took a few episodes to get a grasp for me. Initially the child seemed unlikely and incapable of the attack and when I saw one of his friends that looked so similar to him and being punched out by the older girl, I thought it was more of a murder mystery. That didn’t pan out and then next, his Jeckell/Hyde personality switches in therapy reminded me of Ed Norton in “Primal Fear”. It closed with his dad’s similar volatility as a planted cause of his behavior. I’m not sure what to make of it. His parents seemed to be in a loving marriage he could be volatile (and put them through that emotional turmoil) but never abusive to his family and his daughter was strong and part of that close knit family. I think the father thought it was his fault because of that trait and their lack of supervision/control on the internet.
It seemed like a rather random thing that could happen to a reasonably good set of parents. If the kid was in a school with better influences likely would all have turned out different. The father tried to support the kid in sports then that didn’t work out and he got overly involved in his business. Wherefore but the grace of God go I.
the acting top to bottom was superb.
the reality is that kids have it so much easier, and so much harder today than when we did in the 80s and 90s (imo).
easier in the sense that healthcare is mostly better, technology has made it safer in terms of day to day (car safety etc), technology has made it easier for parents to spend more time with their kids etc…
but on the flip side, if you were bullied at school, it kind of ended at school. you went home, spent time with your safe crowd and that was that. occasionally you’d bump into someone who was a jerk at the mall or whatever, but it didn’t go much further than that.
these days, bullies follow you everywhere. the reality is that it’s really hard to be a kid without social media. it’s now everyone connects etc. the bullying is 24/7.
sometimes kids are just pricks and it’s not the parents fault at all. but ffs, if someone is being a bully and teasing others, parents should be notified, and it should be the parents responsibility. if it continues, boom, there needs to be serious consequences. otherwise, sooner or later, school shootings in america are going to continue to rise.
Same thought. This could happen to pretty much any set of parents.
I think we tend to overthink the influence of parents on kids, especially teens, and underestimate the influence of friends, enemies, frienemies and the internets.
Each to their own, but I could not disagree with you more.
Though I’ll acknowledge the slow moving pace will put off many, to me it’s symbolic of the way the lives of other family members can become paralysed as they struggle to get past a traumatic event and forever ‘losing’ a child they thought they knew.
Ep 4 was the standout for me because I could relate to the emotions of the father (anger, guilt, frustration, overpowering sadness). The final scene on the bed got me because the personal item was almost identical to my own sons, right down to the colouring. The final gesture was basically an acknowledgement he was never getting his sweet boy back.
I suppose if you’re one that needs to take away something uplifting this is not the show for that.
NB my son did not harm anyone, just to be clear!
Wife and I watched it and it’s depressing nature had her put off completely. I on the other hand liked the one camera who followed each actor from scene to scene, and I took something else from this very dark movie. I felt that the real culprit here was the social media and phone that was obvious in the plot line.
It made me feel that my decision to not give that out to my 13 year old boy(and his younger brother and sister) is the right thing to do, and just one less nail in that coffin that engulfed this family. I love what OZ has done in this arena, they recognize the damage it can do to kids, and this movie was just the extreme conquence of this new dynamic that most of us did not have to navigate.
As others have pointed out, this could be just about any modern family today, and of course in hindsight there are failings that contributed. But to me it was more the kids out of the home environment, and it was super sized because of his social media entrenchment.
And I can see it has become normalized in that age group too, I think my kid and just a few others are the only ones outside that online loop, not sure how much longer I will be able to keep up those walls. I wish this was a bigger topic of discussion and action in our govt., and not colored dyes in jelly beans.
Just saw an interview with the Dad in the show.
Episode one, what aired was take 2.
Episode four was take 14.
He went through the process, basically 1 day of script rehearsal, 1 day of choreography, then Shoot. They had one shot killed cause they lost power, so no recover from that.
They also showed a behind the scene, shot of 1 part with someone walking up stairs. The camera guy hands the camera up to someone upstairs, as the focus stays on person walking up stairs. You could see lots of modified attachments on the camera.