Rebekah Wight

This review will contain spoilers I wish this movie had a disclaimer as it was very hard for me to watch. The way Nicholas' (the son) parents treated his issues and went about trying to help him was deeply upsetting to me. I'll start small. Peter (the father) is confronted by has ex wife. She's deeply concerned about their son who she just found out has been missing school for about a month, but has been pretending to go. Peter goes to see if thers trouble at school and Nicholas tells Peter he wants to move in with him and stop living with his mom. Despite all the information Peter is given about Nicholas and school the only effort made is to transfer him. Peter doesn't check in with the school to see if Nicholas is attending class or even arrange rides to and from school for Nicholas, or honestly even both. Peter is constantly stressing about the future to Nicholas and yet where is the effort? The dangerous decisions Peter makes in regard to Nicholas after seeing "marks" on him was infuriating to say the least. There were no systems put in place to protect this child inside Peter's home before of after Nicholas moved in. Not removing of dangerous items from shared spaces left Nicholas accuse to unsafe objects, which on multiple occasions ends poorly. It's just talk. all Peter provides for Nicholas is lip-service about the future and probing questions about why he's this way. Honestly every adult in this child's life does the same. There was a particular secen near the end that took me out of the movie. This being where a psychiatrist is trying to convince both parents to keep their son at the hospital. He asks that the parents make this decision in front of their son "to help him accept treatment." Ridiculous. No health care professional would ever do this as it could be damaging for Nicholas. Even after they remove Nicholas they continue to make irritatingly dangerous choices with their son. It was hard to watch Nicholas test boundaries to see if he could get out of sight and when it works he used the opportunity to very blatantly say goodbye and is not stopped. (The way this kid would be in the car on his way back to the hospital, if it was me is just wild.) I feel there was just a huge lack of awareness from the parents to the production team and the heavy subjects felt greatly mishandled.