My children will never leave my sight again. I will chaperone them at all times until they reach an age at which they can behave responsibly. Since I have yet to reach such an age, this appears to be a lifetime’s job. It may also require some creative scheduling, but I can make that happen. They’re not taking a single step without being in my direct line of vision. For this new and revolutionary path I will be taking in my work-in-progress theory of parenting, I must give direct credit to the movie Bully. For without this film, I would never have realized the fatal error of allowing my children any freedom at any time.

The 2001 release Bully is based on the true story of eight young adults living in Hollywood, Florida. Written for the screen by Zachary Long and Roger Pullis, and adapted from the book by Jim Schutze, Bully basically portrays a parents nightmare of what it means to be an adolescent (in this case a late adolescent). The film opens with Ali (Bijou Phillips) and Lisa (Rachel Mines) discussing their sexual escapades as they enter a sandwich shop. Ali is clearly taking the lead, as Lisa looks on shyly from behind a curtain of hair. Behind the counter we find Marty (Brad Renfro) and Bobby (Nick Stahl). Bobby is cocky and rude as the girls bait them with sexual banter, while Marty is fumbling and unsure. As Ali becomes increasingly suggestive, Bobby begins berating Marty, ordering him to set up a meeting with the girls. Marty takes this abuse, although the look on his face is a combination of shame and rage. These stellar citizens do meet up later, for a nice round of adolescent sex in a car. No date, just flat out sex. All seem to be pleased with this outcome.

As the story progresses, we see Lisa and Marty becoming more “together”. In other words, they have sex all the time. It’s not the romantic making love type of sex, it’s the adolescent “I think we should have lots of sex” kind of sex. Lisa becomes very attached to Marty, professing her undying love repeatedly, usually during sex. Marty is not so quick with the undying love, perhaps because he’s busy with the sex. But for Lisa, this is the relationship of her dreams. She’s finally dating “a hunk”. She only has one problem. Bobby.

Marty and Bobby have been friends for many years, Bobby always in the dominant role. He pushes Marty around, humiliates him in public, physically abuses him. The two of them together earn some extra cash at gay clubs. Bobby tells Marty what to do, and Marty does it, from phone sex to dancing for cash in his underwear. After this particular episode, Bobby gets a kick out of insinuating that Marty must be gay, as he seemed to be enjoying himself on stage. Marty frequently begs his parents to move, as he desperately wants to get away from Bobby, but lacks the will on his own. As you can see, Bobby is our titular “Bully”.

When Bobby isn’t with Marty, the scenes of his home life are disturbingly normal. He’s the only one of this group still attempting to earn a high school degree, and his father pushes him hard to succeed and make a future for himself. He seems like quite a good son, until he’s with his peers. Then he’s physically and verbally abusive, a bully in every way. His attitude toward women is condescending at best, brutal at worst. His actions toward Marty are confusing and tangled. One minute they are best friends; the next Bobby is punching Marty in the face. After a while it becomes quite clear that Bobby is very likely gay, and struggling mightily with this. His blustering, misogynistic bravado is more of a cover for an inner loathing and dense insecurity than anything else. He’s a bully because he’s preoccupied with his sexual identity, and somewhere along the line, learned that tormenting others is a way of deflecting attention from anything about himself that he does not want to face. Too bad his actions don’t let any of this through. To his peers, he is nothing but a pig. They don’t see him at home; they only see him as the nagging thorn in their side that he becomes when in their company.

Lisa, having become sure that Bobby is the source of all that ails her, somehow manages to rally a misfit group of six other misguided souls to help her deal with this “problem”. From here on, things only get worse, if that is humanly possible.

Bully is a story with many levels, and messages. It’s a story of peer group insanity, a story of ridiculously prolonged, idle adolescence, a story of lack of responsibility, a story of the stupidity of youth. Put all these things together and you have an explosive combination. As a true story, there is no claiming that these characters are exaggerated parodies. The events in this film happened. The alarming level of immaturity and downright stupidity in this group is absolutely disturbing. The fact that there is virtually no parental presence points to a societal issue that very few people want to discuss. This crowd isn't in school, they don’t have jobs, they have no accountability to anyone for anything. They are of some indeterminate age between adolescence and adulthood, but their behavior is clearly adolescent regardless of their ages. They have easy access to drugs, money, cars, and the ever-present (if never evidenced) security of living with Mommy and Daddy. No one demands anything from them, and thus their lives become filled with minor drama made into major life choices basically because they’re bored. That is a sad statement. But it’s true here, and I shudder to think how many other places.

Director Larry Clark doesn’t shove any moral messages down his audience’s throat. He puts the story on the screen and lets the viewer conclude what they will. Each character has a distinctive, quirky personality, with both bad sides and good. They aren’t always foul and unappealing. At times they are funny and charming in their lack of sophistication. Then they become scary in their lack of any kind of reasonable judgment. The focus on each character in turn, eventually bringing them together into this ragtag group of idiots, wanna-bes, walking wounded and budding sociopaths is a major strength of the film. The actions they take, looked at realistically, make no sense, but you understand how they get to this crazy place. That’s quite an achievement for Clark.

The performances are universally solid. Brad Renfro as Marty gives his character a curious mixture of vulnerability, unfeeling coldness and barely contained rage that makes Marty into the single biggest enigma among the characters. It is Marty’s motives that are the most mixed, and Renfro does a good job giving this character an eerie lack of consistency that makes him sometimes likable and sometimes frightening. Nick Stahl as Bobby is perhaps the most outstanding of the actors. He shows us two distinctly different sides to Bobby, but Stahl manages to avoid making this incongruous. Bobby is a confused young man without any adequate coping mechanisms. Those he chooses are vile, yet in the end rather sad. Rachel Miner as Lisa is also very good. She starts out as being some sort of innocent, shy tag along, and turns into one of the most aggressively conscienceless members of the group. Bijou Phillips gives Ali a vapid air of needing both to shock and have instant gratification. There is really no indication at any time that Ali has any functional understanding of cause and effect. The rest of the characters range from drugged out mania to edgy and frightened, all to good effect and each with a distinct set of personality traits. Very good performances from this group of young adult actors. All of the older adults that appear serve as nothing more than periodic evidence of parental stupidity. They all (with the exception of Edward Amatudo as the father of Bobby) are perfectly well aware that their kids have no direction, ambition or skill, yet do nothing to encourage them to make lives for themselves. It seems that they are perfectly content to let their children live with them and drift aimlessly for the rest of their lives. Each adult performance is nicely blithe with a hint of stupidity and deliberate ignorance.

The photography (Steve Gainer) is serviceable for the most part, without being more. There is a point where he resorts to some type of intensely irritating circular camera work intending to accentuate the circular nature of the conversation at hand. A clever idea perhaps, but absolutely nauseating in its execution. The score is rap heavy, succeeding in helping convey the fringe world of the disenfranchised that these ladies and gents are under the delusion that they live in. It’s a nice, very urban, counterpoint to their cushy and useless suburban existences.

Overall, Bully is an immensely disturbing, but riveting portrayal of a group of young adults left to their own devices in a world where nothing is expected of them. They more than live up to these expectations, and the terrible combination of money, drugs, youth and stupidity run a vile yet fully fathomable course. The director gives us an unflinching portrayal of this true story, and the actors do a fine job of bringing these characters to life. Quite a riveting film, Bully contains strong sexual content, as well as some violence. In an unusual turnaround for movies these days, the sex is far more abundant than the violence, and the two are not always linked. Even though the story is strong and interesting, the abundance of these elements may seriously turn off some viewers, which is unfortunate. I recommend this film; it’s really very good. But be aware of what you’re getting into before you watch. It definitely isn’t a movie for everyone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find my children and secure those apron strings as well as possible.









* The DVD contains extras including interviews with both director Clark and the actors. The disturbing thing about the actor interviews is that the viewer comes away with the alarming sense that some of the actors are just as misguided and ignorant of consequence as the characters they play. In particular Rachel Miner and Bijou Phillips come across as lacking a true understanding of how horrendous this story is, and how deeply disturbing. They relate to the characters they play in a way that makes you question their own ability to behave maturely as adults. It’s a little scary.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age