I found out about this movie through Netflix, it was the first thing a saw when I opened it and the trailer popped up. I was immediately interested but I thought the trailer spoiled the shock factor in the ending so I was a bit mad that I watched the trailer in the first place. Netflix must've really wanted me to watch it, giving me a notification on my phone about it when I was already 10 minutes into the movie, which kind of scared me.
The movie's central theme is around a toxic relationship between a mother and her son. A lot of it was very heavy and made me think a lot. I can usually sympathize with characters even if I can't really relate to them, but the mother in this movie was just a terrible person. She actually made me very angry, which is an emotion that I don't feel often when watching movies. She had no sense of responsibility at all. She had no money, never tried to get a job, and never seemed to care for her son. She even used her son for money, telling him to go ask people she knew because they would be more willing to give the kid money than her.
I felt bad for the son for most of the film, though I never really understood him either. He continued to protect his mother even though he never received any love or care from her and was just there to be used. He stayed with her even though he had multiple chances to leave her. At one point, a child care service worker was trying to help him, but he ended up leaving with his mother. The only time he ever seemed happy was when he was teaching his little sister, who was introduced later in the film after a jump in time. The mom never wanted either of them to learn and I think she wanted to have control over them. They were the only ones that stayed with her. Everyone else had left, her family, her partners, so she wanted to keep the one thing that she could.
The family struggled with money the entire film and it involved in the climax of the film, where the son killed his grandparents to get their money. They had the statement "17-year-old boy kills his grandparents" in the trailer, which I thought ruined the surprise. The grandparents would not give the mother money, which I understood, since she was not a person to be trusted but I didn't understand why they didn't try to help their grandchildren. Towards the end of the film, the mother suggests to her son that if they killed the grandparents, then they could finally have money. She was very manipulative, saying that his sister was going to die if he didn't, so he felt that he had to even though he didn’t want to.
After he killed them, it wasn’t long until he was caught. He got a 12-year sentence that could’ve been shorted if he told the truth of his mother’s involvement, but he lied, saying it was all his idea and she had nothing to do with it. This was the only time I was angry at the son, I still didn’t understand him. The last scene showed the child care service worker, who had previously tried to help the family, visit the son in prison, and then the mother. She asked the son why he lied about his mother’s involvement and he said it was because he loved his mother. The worker then went to see the mother and told her what he said and it was the first time the mother showed any regret. I think that she finally felt bad about what she did.
The plot and characters are what carried the film and if the acting wasn’t done so well, I don’t think the movie wouldn’ve been good. The use of music was also limited and I only noticed it in two scenes, but I thought it worked since the movie was centered around the plot. The ending was kind of abrupt but overall it was an enjoyable movie and the story was very interesting.