Tanya’s Score: Okay*
Rated: 14A
Starring: real people
Plot: A look at how bullying affects teenagers – specifically two teenaged girls named Audrie and Daisy.
Tanya’s Verdict: This Netflix documentary is a conundrum to me. I figured it would be a good one to watch with my girls – but it ended up being a bit of a jumbled mess. It starts off with the story of Audrie – a teen girl taken advantage of and sexually assaulted while passed out a party.
It then moves on to the story of Daisy – a young teen girl sexually assaulted by a group of boys.
Both girls live in the U.S. and underwent similar experiences in the sense of their youth, their assault and the bullying they endured by the community afterward. But neither girl nor her story is otherwise connected.
The documentary attempts to link the two stories via another teen girl – Delaney – who also experienced an assault and subsequent bullying – and eventually reaches out to Daisy.
Confused? I was too. To make matters worse, Audrie’s story appears brief and glossed over when compared to the amount of time spent detailing the story of Daisy.
To further muddle things – there is a sheriff involved in Daisy’s assault who denies a crime has occurred. While this is thrown in as a curve ball – there are really no further details surrounding this facet of the saga.
In the end, I feel this would have been better served as a one-hour special focussing solely on Daisy, her assault, the bullying, the community reaction and the end results.
If you want to watch something with your teens to spark a conversation about bullying, consent and/or assault – there are so many better, more coherent stories out there than this one.
*Four score descriptions: Sh**; Okay; Good; Great