The film doesn't seem, in any way, educational. It's a documentary that follows the mothers of troubled boys. Never mentions or shows fathers. One woman, about thirty minutes in says she may have to send her son to an institution. He's 12 and she's never gotten any psychiatric treatment for him, she's not educated herself in any way about how to deal with her son's outbursts and she decides institutionalization is best. How do you spend 12 years thinking you know how to parent a child with a mental illness and never get therapy or training to deal with it?
I think the complete lack of medical/therapeutic help in these women's lives is what makes this so frustrating for viewers. The film seeks to absolve Nancy Lanza for failing to get any treatment for her son, Adam, yet these women are going down the same path. I'm not sure how we're supposed to go, "Yeah, Not getting help for your schizophrenic child Is perfectly reasonable." So, for me this was just an exercise in frustration.
I think the complete lack of medical/therapeutic help in these women's lives is what makes this so frustrating for viewers. The film seeks to absolve Nancy Lanza for failing to get any treatment for her son, Adam, yet these women are going down the same path. I'm not sure how we're supposed to go, "Yeah, Not getting help for your schizophrenic child Is perfectly reasonable." So, for me this was just an exercise in frustration.