(Just hear me out, OK?) Stories about school shootings have always fascinated me. I DO NOT encourage or support the killers' actions, but it gives us a different look into human psychology. Specifically, the case of Columbine has been the one I slightly obsess over. Dylan and Eric had a complex (but very sick and reprehensible) philosophy. This movie is one of the many, many school shooting themed movies made after the events at Columbine.
After watching the trailer I thought Alicia was simply a tough girl with an "alternative" style, such as Lisbeth from the Millennium trilogy. Instead, she just ended up being a melodramatic young adult. While the build up to the end of the movie where it explains why she is the way she is kept me interested, it simply wasn't satisfying. Alicia and Deanna were not fleshed out enough.
ALICIA went through a traumatizing event, the idea it turned her into a completely opposite person is very overdramatic. She's just way too vicious and unsympathetic. She looked and acted entirely different than her former self, yet she had a caring father and many people tried helping her through her pain. Alicia was an excuse to put a goth kid into the movie. After Columbine, the goth and metalhead scenes were very often considered responsible for school shooter attitudes and mentalities. Music promoting philosophies such as Satanism and nihilism (like Marilyn Manson) were turned into scapegoats. It represented social outcasts in high schools, which Eric and Dylan were. You'll find that a plethora of these post-Columbine movies where a teen is emotionally distressed is also goth. It was basically obligatory. Also, Alicia's lesbianism comes out of completely nowhere. She said earlier that she finds men in their late thirties more sexually attractive than guys around her age.
DEANNA mentions that people only like her because she's rich and trendy. She's got the nice car and hangs out with the preppy "in" kids. At the same time, she's kinda nerdy - she gets good grades and even mentions being in a mathematics contest. It would have been great if being in the hospital room for so long changed her into a different person, like the room acted as some kind of cocoon for personal growth. (That's only a minor complaint though.) Before Deanna can attempt suicide, Alicia convinces her not to and says something along the lines of "You need to tell your parents to get you out of that room." It was already established that she demanded to go back out in the world many times but HAD to stay in that room so her injuries could fully heal and receive counseling for her PTSD.
THE SHOOTER is never really established. He killed 16 kids because that's just what socially outcasted kids do. That's what Alicia declared, but it's never actually explored any further. Dylan and Eric had many anger problems. Eric got even more violent because some antidepressants can cause that in people which was evident in his case. It wasn't just that they were outcasts. In fact, Dylan had a good number of acquaintances. However, he also had anger issues so Eric's social Darwinism philosophy was seen as reasonable to him.
IN THE END it's a rather mediocre/average movie in terms of story structure and character building. Convincing and notable acting. Appropriate setting. Some clever bits here and there. The scenes feel in order and flow into the following ones. Keeps the audience interested.
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