With all due respect, I think the parents indulged him...

I agree. There is no doubt that the parents were trying to do the right thing, but I'm a little confused on some of the things I couldn't help but think throughout the film. The fact that the mother even took pictures of the boy showing how he wanted to hang himself was a little strange to me. She obviously didn't foresee that she would have to put them in a documentary about her sons death someday, but I still don't get the reasoning behind it. And didn't the suicide note say that he only wanted his family at the funeral and that he didn't want his friends or people from school to know what he had done. The mother made the whole documentary and didn't seem to leave out much.

On the other hand the film did get a lot of information out there on the subject. I do appreciate the family sharing so much. Something still just seems off though, maybe they were just a little too indulgent.

Look, the documentary said several times that people with bi-polar disorder sometimes tantrum and go out of control. The parents said themselves that they were doing everything they could think of - they took him to counseling and actively sought help for him when they realized at age 5 he was way too obsessed with the concept of death.

The only reason they filmed these disturbing clips of him was to DOCUMENT his behavior - to track it, to organize it and hopefully get an overall sense of how to heal him. That's it. They didn't just say, "OK Evan, please sing a song about death and play your guitar so we can film it." They just randomly saw him displaying these obsessive / death behaviors and since they are filmmakers as their careers, they had cameras around to document his behaviors for analysis! Come on people...

"Hey guys! Whoa, Big Gulps huh? All right! Well, see ya later!" Dumb & Dumber

Yes I completely agree. Why did he know about his uncle's suicide. That's not something my family would tell me until I was old enough to understand.

Funny because my friend tried to commit suicide in early middle school. I honestly believe the only reason why was because a year earlier one of her friends/counselor from a summer camp hung herself and died.

She would have never known about self-harm if her friend never killed herself. To this day she has never recovered and is subscribed to dangerous level of drugs only to be abused by drinking.

Agree. I feel that turning the camera on him instead of stopping him is somehow silently giving permission. If a kid is starting a fire and a parent gets out the camera instead of addressing the behavior, the kid is going to thing it must be ok, or maybe even entertaining if Mom is getting the camera. However I do not at all believe this would have ceased his tendencies. I dunno. I truly sympathize, but being a mom myself, I couldn't possibly watch my daughter even pretend to do it, let alone get the camera. Did she already have the camera in her hand, or did she say "hold on a second" while she went and grabbed it? I don't believe she "needed proof". When you know in your heart something is true, proof is not necessary unless there's something at stake. If the psychiatrist wouldn't treat him because he didn't believe her, it makes sense. But that's not why she did it. I think those pictures say more about her than Evan.

Also, most depressed people don't announce they're depressed unless they want attention for it. He was told at a young age he was depressed and he saw that it got him attention. The way he says it when playing the guitar ("it's because I'm depressed...") it's clear he wears that label of himself that he was given. I'm not saying he wasn't depressed, I'm saying maybe he shouldn't have been given that label at such a young age and shouldn't have been given the permission to act certain ways because of it. It's almost like someone said to him "it's ok Evan, you do these things because you're depressed."

The mother says that he didn't understand that standing on the ledge of his school would get him in trouble. That's a problem. He definitely should have known that, but if people get the camera instead of stopping him, how would he know?

Forgive me, I don't think she was a bad mother and I believe she loved her son. I just don't understand her behavior at all. And I don't think I'm a better mother, I've made plenty of mistakes.

I don't know why I judge. Writing this doesn't bring me joy or good feelings. I think I'm looking for a scenario that ends with Evan alive. I am sorry.

His parents weren't filming him so they could all watch it later with friends and family like it was his 5th birthday party. They did it because it seemed unlikely that anyone would believe them when they sought help for his suicidal behavior. They didn't see him playing sad songs on his guitar and think "we should film this! This will be fun at the next family reunion!!"
I think them letting him write and star in a play about a dead child was viewed as a way for him to express some of his internal pain. Romeo and Juliet is performed in a ton of schools and it doesn't lead to suicide, despite two teens both commiting suicide on stage. I honestly think they thought it was an outlet for those feelings, not a blue print for his own death.
I have Bipolar disorder as well as PTSD. I thought-and think-about suicide on a daily basis. As early as six I thought if I died, the abuse I was enduring would stop. Nobody "let" me focus on death. My undeveloped brain did that all on its own.
Sometimes parents seem or act indulgent in their child's destructive behavior. I think a lot of it isn't done to spoil them or make them think the behavior is okay, but honestly just trying to keep them happy and alive for one more day. Bipolar is an intense psychiatric disorder which ends in suicide more than we'd like to think. I think they were desperate to keep him safe, one day at a time.
This film was heart-breaking. The message board for this film is infuriating. I wish people could have opened their minds a little and see this for what is was: a family's journey through a hellish psychiatric disorder that ended in tragedy. It could not have been prevented, only dragged out. It was no one's fault.