There are a few unimportant details that prevent me from being able to vote this higher but in many ways this movie was a 10.
This film blew me away. I was expecting it to be typical nihilistic garbage but I was surprised by the almost John Steinbeck way that at the beginning you have no sympathy, or even have hatred for the main characters, only to love them in the end as you realize that they are just like you. Also, they have a sort of nobility that you never expected.
The film doesn't have much character development but the development it does have is absolutely amazing. Somehow the movie is absurdly dramatic in some ways, but the overall tenor is that it is beautifully understated and as such many people will not appreciate it.
For those of you who have never struggled with an addiction or committed a crime, you will not understand the power of the group 12-step program scenes, the realization of who you are and what you have done that slowly dawns on a person. Also, if you have never been tempted to suicide or gotten into the heart and mind of a friend who is tempted to suicide, in order to help him or her, then you won't appreciate a lot of this movie.
The scenes with the adopted son and mother as well as with the mother and her daughters, and even the one with the man next to the river, and the man and his parents, were some of the most memorable I've ever seen, memorable because they made me do the work as the viewer.
Again, the power of the movie was what it didn't say, leaving the most important statements to the mind of the viewer, so that they can be said more powerfully than a filmmaker ever could. And in that way, my hat is off to those who made this film, they didn't pander to the audience, the movie held back so that it could be more than it would have been, giving the viewer space to learn about themselves as they watched.
I came across this movie by accident on Netflix and almost didn't watch it. It is a great little gem.
