I suspect I’m supposed to do my due diligence as a serious-minded movie watcher and say I loved this movie. But I didn’t. And I’m kind of annoyed I didn’t. I’ve seen a number of “school shooting” or “kids deal with a violent trauma” movies and tv episodes and most of them were simply better. But this is a new one that more teens are likely to watch so that gives it merit. But for this jaded cynic it only got half-way there.

The film follows a handful of teens after a school shooting. They, as you can imagine, aren’t handling it well and the main character resorts to drink, drugs, and experimentation to deal. Others deal in their own ways while the MC’s family try to understand.

For the first half hour, I was engaged with the trauma. But the next half hour just seemed to swirl its way down the sink. Repetitious and unfocused… which was partly due to the main character feeling empty. In that sense, it worked, I guess… but it wasn’t very engaging for me. I kind of like the last half hour where we start to get some healing and reconciliation.

For a film about modern school shootings that has one character taking up a David Hogg-type roll, there’s one major flaw. Where are the people declaring this whole thing a false flag operation and the characters as crisis actors? I mean… let’s get real. That’s the ultimate current twist in this long American narrative. Sigh.

The acting was certainly great and it was nice to see so many actual teenagers in the parts. Jenna Ortega was quite good. In fact, realizing I’d just seen her recently in Scream 5, I was more impressed that she finally came into focus for me. She was just one of the anonymous new kids in Scream… so credit to this movie for letting her flesh out her character.

So this mean ogre didn’t love this film but I liked enough of it to give it an average score. I wish I liked it more and I think I was supposed to. Maybe it will connect more for teens or for other older folks who aren’t great big cynical meanies. I certainly appreciate the effort.

Score: 78