Authintic to the max, all movies have a stretch, never can a finctional tale get everything right about the city, the situations. So ignore those who came from the city of NY comments. While yes I do agree, perhaps it could have been more likely in maybe Chicago. But I do not live there either. But the point was the multi facets of characters all blended in such a way it melted me into the story. While these people all truly exist from their lifes broken adventures, tortures, which truly are from generation curses many times. But with that being said, the pull in, the ending of it comings from deep trauma, and sadness is much like everyones dailey lives. Those whom today think they have escaped their tortures, but have lead lives of darkness, they can look upon this story, and pity those whom suffer now, however their own torment will eventially come someday. They will wish they were like those whom were not spared the rod duriing their lifetimes. I saw this as a very real situation that happens dailey, not always in NYC or other places, but where a female or male could have children that must escape a very abusive situation. Even though there are shelters many are hardly a place safer and better than a parent may find livng from place to place in their own car. So just because is not a reason to think that a parent that does not choose a shelter would be a good reason to bash their decisions. BY far, the acting was excellent, the storyline was incredibly original, the characters were developed to perefection. I would love to follow the writers, and producers of this movie.