In the opening minutes, I thought this documentary would be about another school shooting -- and it was, but not the kind I assumed. Valentine Road exhaustively documents the events surrounding the murder of an openly queer (and stunningly brave) middle school student by one of his classmates, a killing at the intersection of numerous questions of homophobia, race, education and justice. One of the many talking heads says early on that every adult involved in the situation failed to do their job, and that's just about right.
There are moments when the film demonizes the killer, showing close-ups of an intimidating hooded figure, but also moments where he comes across as tragic, the victim of parental neglect and a social environment that lead him to hate. This makes the latter part of the film, dedicated to the murderer's trial, somewhat awkward -- it's hard to root for any possible outcome.
Valentine Road allows each side a chance to explain themselves, with the only common ground being a tremendous well of pain. Most of the speakers don't acquit themselves well, with several winding up blaming the victim for just being too flamboyant. Formally, it's a fairly ordinary TV documentary, with some thuddingly unsubtle touches. The closing montage set to "Same Love" is particularly cringeworthy, and leaves the viewer with an easy-to-swallow message of gay acceptance instead of the lingering complexities of the case and the seemingly insoluble question of how to respond to such an act of violence. But for presenting those complexities for most of its running time, Valentine Road is definitely worth watching.
There are moments when the film demonizes the killer, showing close-ups of an intimidating hooded figure, but also moments where he comes across as tragic, the victim of parental neglect and a social environment that lead him to hate. This makes the latter part of the film, dedicated to the murderer's trial, somewhat awkward -- it's hard to root for any possible outcome.
Valentine Road allows each side a chance to explain themselves, with the only common ground being a tremendous well of pain. Most of the speakers don't acquit themselves well, with several winding up blaming the victim for just being too flamboyant. Formally, it's a fairly ordinary TV documentary, with some thuddingly unsubtle touches. The closing montage set to "Same Love" is particularly cringeworthy, and leaves the viewer with an easy-to-swallow message of gay acceptance instead of the lingering complexities of the case and the seemingly insoluble question of how to respond to such an act of violence. But for presenting those complexities for most of its running time, Valentine Road is definitely worth watching.