Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
This year, over 5 million American kids will be bullied at school, online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence young people in this country experience. The Bully Project is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground. The Bully Project opens on the first day of school. For the more than 5 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown.
Bully (2011) is a competent and emotionally affecting documentary that follows several families dealing with bullying across America. The film's intimate access to real families gives it genuine emotional weight, and the cinematography captures candid, fly-on-the-wall moments effectively. However, the subject matter, while important, is handled in a fairly straightforward advocacy-documentary style that doesn't distinguish itself formally from similar socially conscious documentaries of its era. The narrative structure follows predictable beats for issue-driven docs, and the ending, while emotionally resonant, leans into uplift in a way that feels somewhat conventional. Acting is not applicable in a traditional sense but the real subjects are compelling on screen. Novelty is limited as the advocacy documentary format is well-worn territory.