The Family I Had
- 2017
- 1h 17m
IMDb RATING
6.7/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
In The Family I Had, a mother recalls how her brilliant teenage son came to shatter their idyllic family through one horribly violent and shocking act.In The Family I Had, a mother recalls how her brilliant teenage son came to shatter their idyllic family through one horribly violent and shocking act.In The Family I Had, a mother recalls how her brilliant teenage son came to shatter their idyllic family through one horribly violent and shocking act.
- Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination total
Featured reviews
Probably one of the craziest documentaries I've ever watched. I feel bad for Charity, because it seems like she's caught in a twisted web of dysfunction. Hopefully there's some healing for her, but Jiminy Christmas, her oldest kid. The signs are there.
When he was thirteen, Paris Bennett murdered his four year old sister. Ella was stabbed no fewer than seventeen times. The kid who did this is said to have an IQ of over 140. Why did he do it? As an act of revenge on his mother. Revenge for what? Go figure. One might expect his mother to disown him, but a mother's love is unconditional, at least in this case. Paris Bennett's mother has led what might be called an unusual life, partly by fate, partly by design. Married twice very briefly both times, her own mother is quite wealthy; the source of that wealth was one of her husbands, Charity's father, who was gunned down in mysterious circumstances. Charity's mother was not only said to have hired the hit-man but was actually tried for murder, and acquitted. In this documentary she makes what can only be taken as a confession, although if pushed she would undoubtedly claim it was a joke.
The documentary makers speak at length with Charity and her mother who are free to tell their respective stories without questions; there is lots of archive footage of the delightful young girl who was denied the chance to grow up, and face-to-face encounters with the monster who killed her.
If you take away anything from this, it should be that some people are just evil. True, a 13 year old is not to be judged by the same standards as a 23 year old, but ultimately, words like psychopath and sociopath are precisely that, words, descriptions of behaviour, not diagnoses of some elusive chimera known generically as mental illness.
The documentary makers speak at length with Charity and her mother who are free to tell their respective stories without questions; there is lots of archive footage of the delightful young girl who was denied the chance to grow up, and face-to-face encounters with the monster who killed her.
If you take away anything from this, it should be that some people are just evil. True, a 13 year old is not to be judged by the same standards as a 23 year old, but ultimately, words like psychopath and sociopath are precisely that, words, descriptions of behaviour, not diagnoses of some elusive chimera known generically as mental illness.
This should be called A Case Study of Denial and Bad Decisions. From the beginning, this family was slated for disaster. It demonstrates the tragic results of ignoring glaring warning signs and blaming others. After all they have been through, they end the documentary placing the blame fully on everyone but themselves. If anything good comes from it, I hope that others can learn what they did not from their own mistakes. It was very frustrating to watch bad decision follow bad decision, but certainly provides insight into how this happened and many ways it could have been avoided from the beginning.
It was very interesting but I think it should've been longer I wanted to know why Paris did what he did to Ella what provoked him at such a young age to do such a thing, what provoked him in general because I couldn't imagine doing such a thing.
Head to the TV, no blinking recommended. Just when I thought I've heard it all. I mean I've watched numerous docu drama TV's series such as FBI files, Forensic Files etc. in my past and the family dynamics & circumstances under which the horrific act occurred still astounded me.
Did you know
- ConnectionsReferences Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou (1975)
- SoundtracksIn the pines
performed by
Mira Billotte: Vocals
Kathi Wilcox: Bass
Matt Schulz: Drums
T. Griffin: Guitar
Recorded by Guy Picciotto at La Bas, Brooklyn
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- Cuando tuve a mis hijos
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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- 1h 17m(77 min)
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