REVIEW: BULLY

Before stepping into to review the movie "Bully" I want to get a few things out into the clear: Regarding the movie's rating, I could care less about it. It has no relevance to the movie besides giving it some buzz for people to see it.  The second thing I want to get out there is that I was on both ends of the cyber-bullying spectrum in the 7th grade.  The god-awful graveyard that used to be MySpace was my refuge for ridiculous outbursts against my other classmates.  I used to instigate one girl in particular, we'd go back and forth arguing for months over nothing.  Near the end of school I sent her a despicably nasty message; she showed it to my homeroom teacher, and why she never showed it to the principal I'll never know.  On the other end a kid threatened to beat me up online.  The next day.I showed the message to the guidance counselor and he got suspended for a few weeks.

Cyber-bullying absolutely destroyed my seventh grade year.  Although I've reconciled with the kid who threatened me, I'm just about dead to the person I instigated.  At the end of that year I deactivated the account.   I wish it was that easy in real life for the kids featured in "Bully."  The meaningless fights people have over Facebook and girls cry about the next day are so insignificant to the problems real children face.

The breeding ground for most bullying is on the school bus, which is where the movie first picks up after introducing you to a family who's son took his own life because of bullying.  We see Alex, a severely socially-awkward child with large lips that make him an impossibly easy target for people.  When he tries to watch a kid's video game he's greeted by "Don't even think about it.  I'll stab you in your Adam's apple. You'll die."  When he's riding the bus and says "You'll be my buddy, OK?" to an older kid he gets an unprintable threat you'll have to actually hear for yourself.  Unlike a generic movie where Alex can learn karate, or get tough and beat bullies up, he has no defense, and there are too many bullies.  The movie was right to focus in on him the most, because Alex's story is undoubtedly the most heartbreaking.

Ja'Meya and her mother

The other of note to me at least, was that of Ja'Meya's. A young girl who became fed up with taunts and insults on her school bus she brought a gun along one day.  Though she shot no one, if someone had provoked her, who knows.  Ja'Meya said she just brought it to scare them, but with recent cases with Columbine and Virginia Tech, you can't help but think what might have happened.  An officer in the juvenile center shares this thought, claiming "NO bullying should resort to guns, unless she was at the point of physical violence."  To that I respond "What about Alex?" He gets beat up constantly.  Does that constitute bringing a gun to the school?  Nothing ever does, but kids are constantly pushed to the limit every second of every day.  When you're in a rut of such magnitude kids can go to the very lowest of lows, exemplified by the two suicides the film showcases. 

While kids don't yet realize this yet, suicide is one of the most selfish things someone can do.  Because a handful of people don't like who you are, you'll give into them by ending your life?  A teenage lesbian named Kelby tries to personify this moral of never giving up, but in the end it turns out too difficult for her.  There's only so much a child can do after all.  The adults infuriated me in this film, one assistant principal so ignorant of her surroundings says the bus route Alex rides on is "as good as gold."  It makes you nauseous just watching it.

One thing I just didn't get about "Bully" is that it doesn't live up to it's name.  It should rather be called "Victims," because it doesn't interview the students who are bullying these children, their motives, if they feel guilty or not.  To get inside the mind of someone feeling pain is easy, to get inside the one who's causing it is a whole other thing.  

To end this dark topic on what you might be able to call a "good note," (the film tries to have a happy ending but after what the viewer is put through it's hard to shake off) a friend of one of the bullied children who committed suicide at the infant age of 11 says:  "I used to...be a bully when I was in the second grade.  When I got to the fourth grade I realized what I was doing was wrong.  If I ever become the king of the United States, I think I'm gonna ban popularity.  That way everybody is the same."

I wish it were that easy.

Rating: 3/4 stars