Evelyn

Powerful heartfelt trauma of a family dealing with tragedy. Fabulous film of a courageous way to cope with loss. A must watch.

My love and deep respect to all involved.

So sad and so well made showing the devastation of those touched by suicide. Well done all of you

If you love documentaries then this is a must. The honesty of the family members feelings and the family footage is incredible. I applaud the director. He lets us into his family and heart and it is a privilege. Timely in this day and age. Absolutely worth watching.

It's a heavy account of how one death can lead to a domino of fractures within a family, and how they try to come to terms with it. It can serve as a reference for those living in a society in which people hesitate to confront and express their emotions.

All good.. but oh boy, their father, Andreas, is a classic case of a narcissistic, patriarchal SWM. It's like a masterclass of how to turn everything into being about himself. From the get-go, he condescendingly categorizes which of his children ressembles which parent (no surprise which he thinks is superior). Then, he threw a fit at a restaurant about insignificant things (hence drawing attention to himself). Shortly after that, he claimed that according to a doctor in Germany, his son wouldn't have killed himself had he been placed under their care there, then attempted to clarify that he didn't believe it'd make a difference (ok, then why stirred the already messed up pot like that?). He also asserted that he's not trying to blame anyone, but kind of subtly hinted that his daughter should've looked around the house when his brother was't found in the house. When his other son was being emotionally vulnerable with a stranger, he said: "Brilliant, I wouldn't have done that" (the majestic "I" is peppered throughout everything that he said, and you don't really feel like it's a complement, more like an unsolicited judgment). And even after all these, he demanded that his children show him respect.

This is a heavy, heavy film. It is a film about grief-a theme already explored in many ways this year alone (Midsommar, The Farewell, The Nightingale), but never this intimately or confrontational. Grief is one of the most mysterious and unpredictable parts of our nature, and it is bravely unpacked in this film, as if reopening a box of long lost memories...

Evelyn is a retreat along the path once walked by a brother and a son, as each family member pieces together and rebuilds the memory of him through reflection, emotion, logic, dreams, catharsis, and rediscovery.

Evelyn is a brave film, because it puts on display the complexities of grief and how much it differs among individuals. A single retreat may be healing for one person and provocative & unsettling for another who may have already made peace. We see a distant family come together as all of the moving parts of grief unfold in front of the camera, and nothing about it is easy or neat. But it is organic. It is courageous. It is universal. You can feel the suppressed become unsuppressed. You can feel an unwanted layer of pain peeled off of this family the way you sweat out toxins in a sauna. And from the emotionally affecting sister to the almost comically irritating dad, you really form a bond with this family from the beginning.

It's soul-wrenching and challenging, but in all the necessary ways. Evelyn being on Netflix may or may not undo any damage associated with Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, but it is a step in the right direction for mental health awareness and suicide prevention.

An essential watch.