Kate & Bill are contemplating taking one last family holiday together to save their empty and emotionless marriage. That night they talk on the phone to Sam their 18 year old son who’s away at College and he seems quiet and more distant than usual, but they just put it down to him trying to cope with his first year studying away from home.
Next day tragedy strikes at Sam’s school and 17 people are shot dead by a lone gunman, and when the Police arrive on their doorstep, they know straight away that he is dead. But what they are not prepared for is the fact that Sam was the one that had killed all these people before he set the gun on himself. It’s sadly an all too familiar story, but this time for once it’s viewed not though the eyes of the victims or their families or even the police. but through the parents of the perpetrator.
Kate & Bill were hardly communicating with each other before the tragedy struck and now they clam up completely as there are totally bewildered as they attempt to come to terms with what there son has done. They are desperate to establish if they in fact are really the ones too blame for his actions. In this remarkable heart-wrenching movie we witness not just the pain of distraught parents dealing with a child’s outrageous crimes but also with the helplessness of the continuing breakdown of their marriage.
Beautifully written and devoid of any hint of sensationalism, it’s all made so very believable by the very sensitive performances of Maria Bella as the mother who cared too much, and Micheal Sheen as the distant father who is too scared to accept that maybe he didn’t love his son at all.
The ending is inevitable: life will go on. The question in this case is how. Well worth watching to find out.
