And Then I Go

A pretty good film ruined in its final moments. Most films that stop without ending are failures of grace, brains and courage. This is no exception.

The acting and filmmaking are very realistic. It's almost like you're watching a documentary. A very important film to see and talk about in today's climate of tragic school shootings in America. Addressing bullying, the consequences of a destructive friendship on a young mind, adolescent alienation and the hardship in processing or communicating inner pain and turmoil as a result, and an adult generation that may be hearing but not actually listening.

I've seen this film a few times now, very good acting, but the story needed more. The ending was barely seen, as in the final event happens, but all you see really is blur and the voices are muffled. There wasn't a lot of development from anyone, and Edwin and especially Flake needed it the most. Things just happen that don't explain anything as to why the characters act the way they do. Zero Day does this much better, with its video diary style and final scene completely seen to the viewer, but I prefer this over that but only because of its clearer visuals, music, interaction, and less drag. It was good, but could've been better to give this a 10.

This film, dark and spare in the script and the actual cinematographic light cast on its main characters, succeeds in getting the viewer inside every character.

It makes clear the gnarly inchoate incompetence and pain of being thirteen year-old boys, friends since kindergarten, unsuccessful in 'socializing' in middle school.

Clear also is the wide gap parents try to bridge, when they try to fix their kids, objectify their children as problems to be solved by programs and processes, instead of wordless aimless love.

"And Then I Go" has a plot, which dimly echoes the Columbine school tragedy, but that echo isn't the point of the film at all.

It's about the hundreds of blows that being "othered" inflict upon a young and fragile sense of human worth, and the dark pearl that can rise from being hated or dismissed or being made small, a nick at a time.

It's about the tragedy of blind loyalty also. It's about a lot of things, some of which you will see, though I have missed.

Good movies are like that.

This is one of those movies where you keep waiting for something to happen..... and then in the last 3 seconds it does, but you barely see anything, and then it ends. Find anything else to watch, literally anything.