Bully
Tagline: A Year In The Life Of America’s Bullying Crisis
There surely isn’t a more timely documentary to be made right now than one about bullying. And Sundance and Emmy-award winning filmmaker Lee Hirsch sets about tackling the tricky topic by coming up with a cinematic, character-driven piece.
Bully follows five children (and their families) over the course of a school year. We hear from those who have lost loved ones to suicide as well as a mother awaiting the fate of her 14-year-old daughter who has been incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus.
When you discover that more than 18 million American children a year are affected by bullying, you can see why we needed a long look at the sensitive subject matter. And it sounds like Bully has been handled with aplomb. TIME’s Richard Corliss is clearly impressed: “A documentary as vivid as any horror film, as heartbreaking as any Oscar-worthy drama.” “Serves as a call to action against abuse of students by their peers as it follows, over the course of a year, five sobering case histories of unrelenting schoolyard persecution,” writes Variety. “Children who allow themselves to see the world through the eyes of the film’s victims will never be the same,” notes New York magazine. “It is hard to not respect anything that asks us to respect the stories of the dead, and asks us how we might help the living,” says MSN. Championed by producer Harvey Weinstein (no stranger to accusations of bullying himself), it remains hard to overlook the irony that his backing of the project could see the documentary watched by millions.
VIDEO: YouTube Bullying Confessions