Sexting in Suburbia (2012)

That was an excellent one.

Sadly Over-hyped

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Having just watched this film now, under the title of 'Shattered Silence' which is a better title than the main, I find the film itself compelling and there is a strong underlying story to the overall plot.The cover up and denial are rife when it comes to bullying, the film has good pace and follows through dramatically with flashbacks that are well timed.What did let the film down was the very end sequence, where the children make a decision to hand in their phones as a show of respect and strength against bullying, I find this very weak, it would have been simpler to have a memorial tree planted in the victims name, something that would stand the test of time as a remembrance to the incident contained in the film.These are unfortunate circumstances that as a parent, I find I can relate to, as a film maker, we have a feature documentary titled 'Zero Tolerance' in development now that covers victims committing suicide due to bullying, it is sad when this happens, but you have to ask if this film was inspired by events over the last few years when so many more stories come out about cyber bullying.

While the movie is negatively affected by somewhat odd and untimely flashbacks, the entire structure of storytelling does seem intact and the story turns out to be an interestingly engaging detective-kind of plot. Here's the deal. A teenage girl hangs herself to death and her mother begins unraveling the reason behind her death. It is the same old never-giving-up attitude, despite the fact that it seems reasonable and somewhat believable in the realistic sense. So like any typical detective movies, the investigator is determined to find the truth, only this time the one carrying out the investigation is a mother of a deceased child who she believes is bullied to death. As a ordinary detective story goes, more clues are found as the big picture starts to surface. The story is not bad, but definitely we do not get to see very good editing and organization. The ending perhaps is the part leading to a lot of discussion and questioning. Is this part necessary, or is it too cliché for the viewers' taste? Both are possibilities depending on who you are and what you are expecting. What we get overall is a good detective story that is extremely personal. The most disappointing thing has to be the ending, which seems like a weird and constructed for one and one purpose only, for the message delivery. While I am not judging whether such a way of reinforcing a message is the proper way, it would certainly be much more favorable to spread the message throughout the entire movie, instead of making a scene for achieving that effect, which does not seem like a very smart choice. 6/10

The movie kept my interest and had it not been for the last 5 minutes, I'd have rated it above a five.When a movie deals with a "realistic" topic it should try with its best effort to portray what most likely would have happened in the real world.A girl sends her boyfriend a nude photo which ends up going viral. Girl is kicked off her sports team and to her life has no meaning. This is very much like what it feels like in high school when something goes awfully wrong.Girl kills herself and mom is determined to find out why. The movie did a good job following her investigation and the culprit did take me by surprise. The movie should have ended with the hospital scene.What the movie did next was incredibly silly. The school suddenly rallies behind dead girl and students, on the lead of dead girl's ex-boyfriend and good friend, turn their cell phones in for the rest of the school year.Are you kidding me? What teenager would really do this? I couldn't believe that the makers of this movie decided to go with this ending. Poor judgement in my mind and it made me rank this under a five.

Outstanding film dealing with bullying in our schools. In this one, a mother of a daughter who committed suicide wants answers to what drove her daughter to do this. The girl had everything.It is during the investigation that the mother encounters a hostile environment. None of the students would speak to her and she gets resistance along the way from the principal of the school. After going into the girls' bathroom, the mother had every right to accuse the principal of being incompetent.What makes this movie so good is the ending.One will be absolutely shocked to see who the culprit was. A picture of the girl in the raw was sent all over. This picture ruined her life.This is an engrossing, timely movie. There is tragedy throughout the film.