A Girl Like Her

Really this is quite powerful and if it were compulsory viewing for school children I'm sure in those schools where it was shown bullying would reduce. Not sure at which age would be ideal for the viewing. Perhaps experts in psychology could figure this out. Probably look at the stats on what particular age group experiences the increase in bullying and go from there. Parents need to watch it as well, though it is more difficult to make it compulsory for parents. Well made, strong message, solid acting and an ethically important work. Well done to all those involved and I hope those that are the victims in real life get some betterment out of this. Thanks for the learning experience.

Call this film "Mean Girl with a Killer Attitude and Intent." It's not hard to see the similarities between the popular teen film comedy "Mean Girls" and this film. The shocking aspect of this film is that the film presented is more disturbing than the film's subject matter. Let me explain; most films center around the protagonist or hero, as we are drawn to them and their ventures and obstacles they must overcome. Here in "A Girl Like Her" it is the antagonist or villain Avery Keller who is showcased throughout the film. SPOILER ALERT!! Perhaps a play on words by the filmmakers for Keller sounds like Killer. Something Avery Keller is almost accused of within the film. While the victim of her killer antics and bullying Jessica Burns lies in a hospital bed from an overdose brought on by Keller's constant bulling harassment. Burns is hardly seen after a short intro scene, except for very brief flashbacks. The entire film then centers on the popular blonde beauty Keller. A supposed documentary film crew arrives at Keller's high school informs her that they want to do a film about her the popular girl of the school. From here on in it's all about Keller. The filmmakers of "A Girl Like Her" claim they wanted to explore the inner workings of a bully. Yet their idea backfires badly, for the bully here Keller is given star treatment to the hilt . This film gets even more bizarre and redundant when it is learned that Brian Slater, Jessica's close friend fitted her with a small lapel camera to record Keller's mean girl bullying and harassment. The bullying from Keller contains dozens of incidents plus emails texts from Keller with vicious messages wishing that Jessica was dead etc. Yet no one comes forward with this incriminating evidence to stop the bullying. Then add to this the many high school students that state that Jessica was harassed by Keller. Later The documentary film crew presents this revealing film to Keller. She immediately goes into her "oh feel sorry for me mode" and cries her eyes out stating she didn't know what she was doing. This is a lie! Bullies love the power they get from their mean behavior, they love controlling others. The shocking outcome is that Keller received no real punishment for her bullying mean crimes other than counseling for her behavior. I believe that now in some states it is a serious crime to be convicted of bullying, after so many students committed suicide after being bullied. This film does a gross injustice to all those victims by glamorizing the bully and making her the star of the film. They way to stop bullying in schools is to have teachers and students aware of the threat, to have open communication by all to inform on any bullying activity in and around the school. To have constant auditorium meetings with all students and teachers going over the serious nature of bullying. And to warn those bullying that they will FACE PUNISHMENT!! The filmmakers here had the chance to have celebrities in the bonus section to add their voice to this film to stop bullying!! What did the filmmakers do in the bonus section of this film? They offer interviews with the lead characters. Who gets top billing and is first? Avery Keller the bully. The interviewer here gives Keller way too much sympathy. Bullies should not receive a mild slap on the wrist. They should be suspended from school and face criminal charges!! Every school should have dozens of signs with bold print placed in every hallway that reads. BULLYING IS NOT TOLERATED HERE!! YOU WILL BE SUSPENDED AND FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES!!

First of all I have to say that the performances of the young actors in this low budget production are pretty good, and they are absolutely capable of making you feel with them every step of the way. Secondly the POV shots are a good idea regarding the topic, letting the audience experience the real terror of a bully. Unfortunately that's about it for me when it comes to the positive things about this movie. To me shooting it as a fake documentary didn't give it enough emotional depth, as the flow of the story line, and especially the victim's story was interrupted too much. This way the educational (or awareness) part was pretty dominant, which is my real problem with this movie, because it clearly fails in this category. The movie portrays a stereotype of a bully that doesn't really reflect reality, but much more how bullying was received back in the day. Somenone from a troubled family, or with personal problems that copes with his or her frustration by bullying the victim. So kind of the classic "give me your lunch money", just on a higher level. Not only is bullying clearly in most all of the cases a social behavior, that has a lot of group dynamics involved, which means a terror on the level that leads to suicide attempts is very often the result of active bullying from several people or a larger group. But bullying is not necessarily connected to personal problems of the bully himself. I would even go as far as to say that the bully in the movie is not even a real bully, but would rather qualify as a psychopath, or someone with a personality disorder. She is almost obsessed with her victim, writing her hundreds of text massages online and via mobile, threatening to kill her, or suggesting her to kill herself multiple times, almost every day. That would be very unusual and alarming, and can never never be explained with some minor problems at home as in the movie, where the bully has a sudden crisis of conscience in the end, suggesting she is also just a troubled girl with the need for love. Also they obviously throw in online bullying, but fail to really address the problem. Text massages or mails can be avoided, you can get a new phone number or mail address. What we didn't see was online shaming and harassment, often in connection with social media, almost always, again, a group thing. Often sexual orientation of the victim is involved, often pictures and videos of victims are used. A whole movie from the perspective of the victim, no fake documentary, maybe with a lot of POV shots would have been better, showing how it comes to such a thing as a suicide attempt in more depth, in that case I wouldn't even have bothered so much with the educational part.

It has a strong message, but there are things that I disagree with. The bullying looks like it was taken from a standpoint of an adult taking a guess at what high school bullying is like. Posting 100+ messages on someone's Facebook wall literally never happens, ever. Also, no one just randomly comes out of the blue and sends hate text messages all day long. Another thing that bothered me is that they assume bullies are people who have a terrible home life. This is rarely true. If people actually pay attention, bullies are mean-hearted people that love taking advantage of people. They find joy in it. It's the same as someone kind-hearted who finds joy in helping people. It doesn't have much to do with their home life, it has to deal with who they are as a person and what they enjoy doing to other people. It doesn't mean that they have to have an underlying issue involved. I feel as though this movie could have been executed better by taking actual data from ACTUAL teenagers.

The movie is basically saying "The bully has personal problems and that's why he's bullying other people. Let's look at the bully and try to understand him." Why? Everybody has problems. You do. I do. But I don't go around harassing and humiliating other human beings. That's like saying "You murder a child but you had a bad childhood so it's okay". Ridiculous, right? There's no excuse for treating innocent people like they're nothing. That's why my rate is only 6. In other aspects, the movie is quite good. It's not long but it's cathy and even emotional but I don't agree with what it's trying to say.

It was an interesting take on the subject of Bullying. After Jessica Burns' attempted suicide, A film crew doing a documentary on her school, begins to focus on what made her do it and the the fingers point to Avery Keller, a popular sophomore who for some reason made Jessica her victim, the documentary then takes a look at the life of Avery Keller to see what makes her tick. The movie pushed all the right buttons for me, I felt it was evenly laid out as we got to see what Jessica is going through which is the more favorable issue, but we also got to see where Avery was coming from. The movie does not attempt to sugar coat her villainy, but we all needed to know what was fueling the fire in order to understand it. Not bad

Accidentally came across. Watched it. Felt horrible like I wasted couple of hours of my life that I can't get back. Director just took a great a great opportunity in sending a good message but failed horribly. Idea that if you document the bullies actions and then go to him/her house and sit down and show the documented videos to him/her politely (while the bully rules the house basically) and the bully immediately having this epiphany as if him/her is like Buddha is ASININE at the least. There is nothing more ridiculous and a very powerless way to send a message to your audience of how to solve this problem. Your movies should carry a strong message for such a strong and endemic problem. Here I am watching this movie ONLY to find out that this faceless lady in the movie walks up to bullies house and talks sweet to her and shows her actions in video and the next thing you know she has this realization and feels sorry and even goes to the extent of extreme remorse. Things or people don't change over night. Lot of factors that make a bully in the first place needs to change. The environment that makes a bully needs to change first. Even if this idea that bullies can change just looking at their actions through video tapes (filmed secretly without their knowledge - let alone they throw another tantrum that their privacy has been invaded and go after the victims again) it can only be short lived. Unless the fundamental factors change, bullies cannot be brought down. Unless a strong policy that make these bullies fear for are in place this cannot be solved. Complete waste of my time or any one else time for that matter. Its ridiculous and juvenile on the directors part.

Whoaaa...this was MIND BLOWING! It is based on a true story about a girl who was relentlessly bullied at school and couldn't take it any more. She and her friend filmed the bullying before she tried to take her own life. THIS SHOULD BE COMPULSORY in every school without preaching. I DARE you to not be floored!!! The acting was brilliant and the documentary style really well done. It gave a very real effect and made you feel so much more and connect with the characters. I don't know why this hasn't been more popular or well known than what it is but it deserves every star. I will definitely watch it again and tell people about it.

Saw this movie by chance - was looking for something to watch, opened up Netflix, and it was on the main screen as a suggested title. With a cast of mostly unknowns, I wasn't expecting much. But I was surprised. The acting was mostly very good. Lexi Ainsworth was very believable as the bullied Jessica. I cried along with her, as someone who was also bullied in high school. (To a lesser extent, and before cell phones and social media were really a thing yet.) For the most part, the story was believable and moving. My only problem with it was that it reinforces the false assumption that bullies usually have a difficult home life. This was the kind of information that was generally believed to be true back when I was in school (graduated high school in 2002), but we know a lot more today. Most bullies come from good families and have good lives. By the end of the film, I felt like we were supposed to feel a certain amount of sympathy for Avery. But despite how things were portrayed - her life was really not that bad at all. I felt that a lot of things were exaggerated. Avery wasn't bullying Jessica because her parents fought sometimes and her mom was a little controlling, she was bullying Jessica because she was a cruel, mean, heartless, narcissistic brat. No one with a conscience could treat another person that way. Period. No sympathy for bullies.

A practical production team made an exploitation movie waiting for some fascist white parents who need to make a display of how much they do for their precious children to buy. It is a movie made by adults for adults, all playing the caring game. The story is dull. The acting is to the assumed level of low budged educational movie. The editing is also unpleasant as it is the waving camera, and I don't mean the hidden camera. Expect to go past half time before the hidden camera footage starts showing. And this run for profits won't make any good. There is nothing for the teens about how to get out. There is nothing for the adults about how to talk with the teens. There is nothing for the state employees of how to help. At best, groups of hysterical individuals will just add even more absurd rules that would make the life in the mandatory school system even harder to bear. And because of the extra pressure, the teens will be lashing out even worse. And, like the writes and producers, nobody will ever care about the actual people. Because on screen there are no people. Only cardboard cutouts for the archetypes that the adults have met. Why is any of them doing any of the things? Everything is open so the emotional crowd would fill in the gaps. Why the attractive girl is doing that? 1. Because is beautiful. And 2. Because ... and the loser white middle class parents will fill in their story of well fed misery. Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch