Tiara P – Google

It gets a 4, because it made me think, though there is room for improvement. This movie alludes to many social issues and doesn’t have any neat and complete answers. If that’s the kind of movie you’re looking for, then pass this movie up. But if you’re looking for a movie that addresses how people run from trauma, how the trauma response is always the same, how discrimination is trauma, how abuse is trauma, how abandonment and race relations are traumatic, how mental health is important etc. etc. this is the movie for you. TLDR - If you don’t address your mental health and heal from trauma, your past will keep disrupting your life and you’ll traumatize others. Cheryl/Neve’s poor mental health caused her to traumatize ALL of her children. She thought that the white suburban lifestyle would fix her internal issues, but once she started seeing her black children, that lifestyle became uncomfortable and impossible to live (not that it was ever truly attainable in the first place as a character says, “You’re practically one of us”.) That’s why her scalp was itchy, it was a constant reminder that her deceptive lifestyle was no longer a safe haven. She was forced to recognize the truth (you can’t run from trauma folks)! People with mental health issues need help and the signs are always there. Her black children were abandoned and abused, seeking comfort, love, and acceptance and were denied once again. Her biracial children were seeking the identity their mother denied them and have also been abandoned by mom and in a way Dad. There’s nothing for the older siblings to envy anymore. No one won in this movie. And that’s the reality for most people who are stuck in the generational trauma cycle.You end up pushing away the very thing you want most. Self sabotage at its finest.

Horrendous writing. I found the movie predictable with bad cinematography. The scenes were drawn out, there wasn’t much character development, and it was demonic on every level. A complete waste of 2 hours. I saw the movie twice and fell asleep each time. There was never a reason to get invested in the characters. Really wanted to love it because I’m a Skarsgard fan, but he wasn’t very believable.

If you want to see a pretty face try to act and fail then watch this series, if not watch something else. It’s completely nonsensical. The protagonist is set up to be a heroine but engages in constant child endangerment. She’s a complete joke. This series is Very far removed from the reality of abuse, homelessness, and trauma. How can you profess to “live for your child” when you let said child cough endlessly from mold exposure, choose the worst job to work at, let your mentally unstable mother babysit, and would rather let your child sleep on a public transportation floor over a warm house? It’s unbearably vexing to see zombie tantrums labeled as acting. All in all the series is unbelievable and hard to swallow. None of it is realistic and I couldn’t get invested in the characters.