Bully
An up close look at bullying.
Directed by Lee Hirsch
(Not rated)
***
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bully is “a documentary as vivid as any horror film,” said Richard Corliss in Time. Director Lee Hirsch spent a recent school year profiling five young victims of brutal peer abuse, including two who had committed suicide. The cruelty on view is so eye-opening that the movie begs to be screened in schools, “so it could provide a clear mirror of distorted values to young victimizers and their victims alike.” Hirsch manages to capture the “unfathomable despair” of the suicides’ parents, but his film—soon to be released in a PG-13 version—is equally harrowing when following a 12-year-old victim in Iowa, said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Sioux City’s Alex Libby is “a bright, aware kid with an awkward manner,” and he’s so desperate to connect with his antagonists that it seems possible that no adults would have learned of the insults and beatings he endures had Hirsch’s camera not captured them. Once Bully turns its attention to an anti-bullying advocacy group, it begins to feel a bit like “an extended PSA,” said David Fear in Time Out New York. That said, it might be “the artiest infomercial ever”—and among the most powerful.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania 'squad' member who beat back a primary challenge
In the Spotlight Lee is the first Black woman ever elected to Congress from the Keystone State
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
6 fantastic places for solo travel
The Week Recommends Go your own way
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
Should Olympic athletes get paid?
Today's Big Question For the first time in history, an international sporting body will pay some Olympians for their achievements in Paris this summer.
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published