Movie Review: ‘Bully’

Director: Lee Hirsch

Plot: A documentary examines the issue of bullying in small town America, focusing on the experience of the victims and their families as they try and get the school system to put a stop to the abuse.

Review: This is a difficult film to criticise because it comes from such noble intentions. There’s no-one who can defend bullying in any environment and there’s no justification for allowing it to take place. When a movie such as this comes along, that seeks to expose bullying behaviour and the lack of response from authority figures, is something that’s needed. It’s something that is often excused as behaviour that is an unwelcome yet unavoidable part of being in high school. In the modern age of digital communication a well made documentary can go a long way to changing peoples perspective on a wide scale ala the Kony video debacle.

Unfortunately, this is not a well made documentary.

Instead of really getting into the topic and seeking solutions the movie is content to elicit an emotional response from the viewer without giving the audience a direction to take their emotion. There are many different sides to this issue and all but one of them are ignored over the course of this documentary. We have five different cases under examination, each of them tragic and difficult to watch. We have two families who have lost their teenage sons to suicide as a result of bullying, a boy unable to communicate the constant physical abuse he endures on the school bus, a girl who took extreme measures to prevent bullying against her and a gay teen girl who’s being isolated in a small town. Although their stories are presented in a linear fashion there’s never a clear narrative thread to grasp and we wind up bouncing back and forth. The context for each subject is kept in the dark apart from the occasional baby video leaving some essential questions about their background unanswered.

The film-makers have performed an impressive feat by capturing some of what happens to these victims during their school day, especially Alex. It speaks volumes that some of the perpetrators of these acts of abuse are so comfortable getting away with what they do even with a camera pointed at them and it’s the strongest point that this film makes – putting the spotlight on the fact that this is happening so readily. While there is plenty of sympathetic material to be garnered from the year that Hirsch tailed his subjects there are plenty of other major players that should have been examined as well.

One of the strongest themes present in the film is that authority figures, namely schools, were unwilling to interfere. Although there are multiple examples of the victims of bullying the only representative of school authority is one vice-principal who is best described as a total dunderhead. She is completely incapable of managing student behaviour and there are frequent instances of students outwardly disrespecting her and her idiotic attempts to reconcile bully and victim by making them shaking hands (and then telling off the victim for hurting the bully’s feelings by not shaking his hand). This person is an incapable clod and, as the only person used to show the actions and abilities of educators, offensive to people working in schools. Likewise the perspective of the bullies themselves are left completely out of the film. An understanding of the psychology of abuse of this type could be assumed to be essential to finding a solution to the issue but it is apparently of no interest to the documentarians. The opportunity for this to be examined is given when the school kids are brought in to be questioned about an incident, but it’s fleeting at best. None of their parents are interviewed and no-one seems willing to outright ask these teens why they did what they did.

There’s nothing wrong with making a one-sided argument in a documentary. If you have something to say then you are within your rights to say it. Even if you accept this as part of the film then there’s still basic information missing. ‘Bullying’ never gets defined in the movie – what kinds of behaviour can be defined as bullying, what line needs to be crossed before it can be classed as a criminal act, what long term consequences and mental health issues have been linked to bullying…none of this gets addressed. Practically no experts, such as psychologists, appear on camera. The omission of these basic conventions gives the overall movie a very shoddy feel. This shoddiness isn’t helped by the ADHD suffering camera man who can’t sit still for twenty seconds without readjusting the focus and turning the camera on its side.

This is a subject to be brought into greater prominence for public discussion. This movie may get some people talking but it doesn’t offer anything beyond that. The campaign promoting the film is pushing for it to be An Inconvenient Truth for high schools but it doesn’t cover enough material to shed any new light for an average viewer, nor does it give the viewer any reason to do anything other than cluck sympathetically.

It’s almost a shame that they didn’t deliver something that could have had a lasting impact.

Score: FOUR outta TEN