"I am beginning
to feel nothing," said Alex Libby of Sioux City, Iowa, are the saddest,
most affecting words spoken in this documentary which has many sad
words to say.

Alex at 12 years old is shown in a school bus, nothing staged, of his being stabbed with pencils, hit and choked by students, cursed at, called names like "Fish face"
and, yet, he responds that if he didn't have them he wouldn't have any
friends. It isn't until the filmmaker brings the footage to his parents
and the head of the school that the former are even aware of what has
been happening. Listening to the school officials will cause your jaw to
drop with their response.

The film deals very little with the actual bullies except for one scene where they are interviewed by the Principal who accepts their excuses and, basically, says, "Don't let it happen again."

The
documentary shows that all adults in authority, whether parents, school
staff, police, politicians, etc., have no clue as to what is happening
under their noses or look at it like 'boys will be boys' or 'there have always been mean girls in school.'

Alex
gets the most on screen time and we are left with a picture of him
smiling and yet he has 4 more years of school while his bullies don't
even get a slap on the wrist. Ja'Meya Jackson gets very little time as when we meet her she has been arrested
for bringing a gun aboard a bus just to threaten her tormentors but she
has 45 accounts of kidnapping and 45 counts of assault brought against
her and is locked up. Sixteen year old lesbian from Turtle, Oklahoma, thinks she can change the school around by being out but instead she is ostracized though we do not see her being bullied.

We don't get to hear/see 17 year old Tyler Long in Georgia or Ty Smalley in Oklahoma, a 12 year old, except in family pictures as both committed suicide after being tormented by students in their schools. We hear their parents talk, all profoundly saddened by what happened to their children, and how responsible they feel because they weren't able to help or get help.

This
is a difficult film to watch but should be seen by every adult to learn
what is happening in the world of children and by every child to know
they are not alone.

The Motion Picture
Association of America rated this film with an "R" because the 'f' word
is used which just goes to show the stupidity of adults in society not
taking care of our children. It is impossible to watch this film and not
want to shake some sense into the heads of the adults.

The director Lee Hirsch was bullied as a
child and he wants adults to learn what they don't know, what they can
do and the children to learn they are not alone. At the end of the film
there is a scene of Kirk Smalley, the father of Ty Smalley, talking about a movement he and others have started called Stand For The Silent. For more information go to www.standforthesilent.org
and if you know of any child being bullied, if you don't have the guts
to stand up for them, send the kids to www.121help.com

The images that open, and are shown throughout the film, of David Long, Tyler Long's father, will haunt you long after the documentary has ended.