Thehibikiew Not even bad in a good way

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

amwolf-22493 This is the clearest and most direct version of the abuses that boarding schools perpetrated against Native Americans in the United States and Canada. I disagree strongly with those who claim the film is inaccurate. In fact, the rapes, physical abuse, and neglect leading to murder of children are accurate according to the records boarding school survivors recount. Most films which depict Native American struggles fear to "go there," to truly face the more hideous abuses that Native American children continued to endure until mere decades ago. The passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 finally ended this pattern of kidnapping and horrifying deprivation, but the legacy lives on.Georgina Lightning did a fantastic, masterful job directing and writing this film. She has created a heartbreaking testament to the spirit of survival which many Native American women over the years have embodied.The film furthermore links racist abuse with cultural genocide and the manner in which white doctors turned trauma into a pathology. Women of Color have been diagnosed as mentally ill and institutionalized historically for reasons similar to the protagonist in this film. Few films truly reflect this reality.In other words, this is a brave, cutting-edge look at a tragic portion of U.S. history whose legacy continues today.

nativetalent1 Visually, it was okay. Editing was good. The main story I understood. It was about "Rain" having these nightmares about her mom's boarding school. A priest who put her mom in a mental facility, wants to do the same to Rain. Why? because of the atrocities priest & nuns did to Native kids at the school many years ago. I got lost & confused & had questions, many questions. What is Bradley Cooper doing in this film? Why did a Native kill a white government worker? Why?! Was Adam Beach a real police officer or just an idiot? He was accepted into the FBI academy but didn't know Law or how to investigate? Rain was in a car accident & John said she had a bump on her head. Where was it? My list of questions go on..., Georgina Lightning wrote, directed & starred in this. A feat in itself. I hear she won all these Indie awards. For what? My questions continue...,

julia kip The story told in this movie made me feel so connected to the intensity of the pain caused to Rain and her family and the children, by those who tried to destroy their way of life in all past, present and future. Rain and all the characters were forced into the dark secrets of the past because it had found their way into their lives and inescapable. I enjoyed how the movie was thought out, visually, conceptually, and with some sit on the edge of your seat suspense. Further more I applaud the development of the characters continuously going deeper and watching them change on the screen, to accomplish all those angles so timely makes it like another world to look into with all the players both in Rain's life and on the reservation, feeling like I get to see the big picture. The fluidity of the many circles and connections seen in the film make the final story such a great accomplishment, and a great conversational piece.

dinky-4 The story of American Indian boarding schools needs to be told. In the past Indian children were taken from their parents, often forcibly, and put into highly-regimented schools designed to eradicate all signs of their "savagery." Use of Indian languages in these schools was forbidden and harshly punished.This movie probably should have been a "period place" showing the experiences of an Indian child thrust into the soul-killing world of the boarding school. Perhaps it was feared this approach would limit the size of the audience. In any case we get a modern-day story, set in northern Minnesota, in which a boarding school is glimpsed only occasionally in brief flashbacks. Surrounding these flashbacks lies a plot cluttered with a bewildering number of elements: the arrogance of the Catholic Church, shock treatments, commercial development of sacred Indian lands, an election for mayor pitting a white man against a red man, gambling casinos, a love story, hallucinations and visions, family secrets leading to tensions, a bizarre crucifixion-style murder, etc. There's even a subplot involving a geologist investigating earthquakes! All this clutter is unnecessary and self-defeating because the story which the movie wants to tell is strong enough as it is. It doesn't need to be "packaged" with elements which tend to detract from it rather than enhance it.