It's kind of amazing how the modern digital life is so extensively documented that a clever team of editors can take your social media accounts and the videos off your phone and make a fairly comprehensive movie of your life even after you've gone. That's what happened here; the production team assembled a detailed accounting of the lives of a family that experienced an unspeakable tragedy. By the end of the film you have a sense that you know these people, which is also part of the problem: the more you find yourself caring, the harder it will be to keep watching.
I really struggled with the foregone conclusion that was the lives of this family. Some things are so horrible my brain just doesn't want to accept them. I watched the movie in fits, drawn on by morbid curiosity but forced to continuously stop by some childish part of my brain that believed that if I simply stopped watching then somehow the remaining unseen events of the film would be trapped in a time bubble that couldn't proceed until I did. If only life worked that way. I never did make it to the very end of the movie because I just never want to hear the full detail of certain events.
The movie is well made, but painful to watch. I'll admit to a certain amount of tears, and a sincere wish that I'd never heard of the Watts family. I will never understand why certain people fought to remove the application of the death penalty; if I had those memories floating around my skull, I would think death would be my best friend. Instead I'll just hope certain people are around for a long, long time, getting visited every single damn day by others who know what this person did to kids.
I really struggled with the foregone conclusion that was the lives of this family. Some things are so horrible my brain just doesn't want to accept them. I watched the movie in fits, drawn on by morbid curiosity but forced to continuously stop by some childish part of my brain that believed that if I simply stopped watching then somehow the remaining unseen events of the film would be trapped in a time bubble that couldn't proceed until I did. If only life worked that way. I never did make it to the very end of the movie because I just never want to hear the full detail of certain events.
The movie is well made, but painful to watch. I'll admit to a certain amount of tears, and a sincere wish that I'd never heard of the Watts family. I will never understand why certain people fought to remove the application of the death penalty; if I had those memories floating around my skull, I would think death would be my best friend. Instead I'll just hope certain people are around for a long, long time, getting visited every single damn day by others who know what this person did to kids.