American Tragedy

I thought this was going to be an open account from the family of a mass murderer. Instead it was positioned as a mental health piece where she describes herself as a parent of a suicide child? Huh? Yes he committed suicide and he obviously had mental health issues but he intentionally and vindictively murdered and attempted to murder lots of people first. They have other parents discussing their kids actual suicides, again how is that relent to her? I do feel sorry for her to have had the loss of her son but she isn't looking at it rationally. I would have imagined she would have went on to help other parents of mass murders or spoke in schools about how school shootings are not the answer in addition to mental health awareness. Also low quality actors to show vignettes from the past just poorly done, actual images and videos would have sufficed. They kept showing Dylan in photos before he looked like the kid with long hair that shot up the school. Felt more they were trying to have you sympathize with Dylan rather than the actual victims.

Mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine school shooters, is who this documentary mainly circulates around. She tries to grapple with how her son became the monster that shot up a school. When Columbine happened in 1999, at the time such an incident was unheard of although now it has sadly become so common in occurrence. Sue Klebold attempts to look back at the moments she missed, what she didn't see in Dylan, how she didn't notice the arcinary he was building in their garage. This documentary brings up interesting points about how America should be concentrating on preventative care as a way to curb future mass shooter creations. With so many aspects of physical health, we promote healthy eating and exercise but with school shootings we teach people what to do in the moment when it's already occurring. The documentary pushes for mindfulness which is great and all but we all know that the real problem is how easily youth can gain access to assault type riffles is what is problematic.

While I appreciate the personal hell Sue Klebold had experienced, where was "Dad" in all this? Ignoring the role of the father, pretending that fathers have no bearing on the positive mental health of young men, will not get us to a place of enlightenment. Breathing exercises are not a substitute. If we're going to address this issue head on, then everything has to be included and this documentary is extremely insufficient in that regard. I believe Dylan's parents are divorced; what happened? Unfortunately, this documentary is painting an incomplete picture in that the male's influence is ignored.

It was significantly drawn out with a ton of unnecessary and super slow reenactments. While reenactments are fine and a typical part of stories like this, they are generally quick and to the point. That's not the case here and I lost interest less than halfway through. The story itself is interesting and deserves to be told but this missed the mark.

A movie every parent should watch. Any parent could find themselves in the shoes of Sue Kiebold. The movie demonstrates the struggles kids go through and how parents don't always see the signs. A real life drama highlighting the need for more focus on mental health...particularly with our kids. An eye-opener that all parents should see.