the attempt at showing ~both sides~ of the story fell flat for me

avery being so self-righteous and set on telling her side of the story, and showing how "broken" her home life is and how she feels such a pressure to be perfect, really does not excuse or even hold a candle to what she did to jessica. many people are abused and don't become abusers. i think avery is naturally a malicious and pompous person who learned to intimidate at home and that combo and the pressure of being an adolescence turned her into a ticking time bomb. she's an abuser. full stop. abusers don't get a pass because they were abused. most are. it doesn't change their capability of making better choices and avery was certainly old enough at that point to realize what she was doing but she was too selfish to care.

her remorse after the fact didn't have an overly positive effect on me. if the purpose of the film was to highlight how ruthless and abusive teenagers can be, they did a good job, and that part was both painful and raw, and it resonated with me. if the point was to show that we shouldn't judge bullies and abusers because at some point they might have been bullied too or they might have extenuating circumstances that led to their cruelty, i don't feel like that spin was particularly revealing or poignant.

nonetheless, i liked this film because i felt it was a pretty accurate portrayal about the realities of bullying and it shows it for the abuse it is, and the potential lethal consequences of letting it go with a "kids will be kids" mentality. going to school shouldn't be a traumatic experience for any child or teen. but it often is. and schools should be held responsible. parents should be held responsible. something needs to be done, especially with how severe harassment, stalking, and abuse is in this day and age where anyone has access to the internet, and even very young children use tablets and phones.

i do see the potential benefit of giving avery's character so much screentime. i could see how addressing avery's feelings and delving into the psychology and reasoning behind her behaviours could possibly serve as a jumping off point for those educators that want to help establish and teach strategies to prevent bullying.

though, the ending was kind of a miss for me. "my name is avery keller and i'm a bully" didn't come off as powerful to me as i think was intended. i'm also assuming that jessica opening her eyes at the end was supposed to be metaphorical rather than a literal ending. otherwise, that's a disappointing terrible and cheesy lifetime-esque twist and the writers could have done better.