Kingdom
of Us *** ½ / *****
Directed
by: Lucy
Cohen.
The Netflix documentary Kingdom
of Us tells a heartbreaking story in a very intimate way. The doc chroincles
the life of the Shanks family – mother Vickie, and her seven children – 6-8
years after the husband/father Paul committed a fairly gruesome suicide –
something that each family member grapples with in their own way. Complicating
matters more is that several of the children on the autism spectrum, and
already have trouble processing their own emotions – let alone reading the
emotions of other people. Each of the family members struggle to deal with the
absence of their father – who was, during his lifetime, both “their best friend
and worst enemy” as one daughter put it. He suffered from his own mental
illness, which made him go very dark, and very quiet at times. Suicide had not
been his original plan either – he had planned, in fairly meticulous detail, to
kill each one of his children, then his wife (they were in the process of
getting divorced at the time), and then finally himself. Why he didn’t follow
through on that, we’ll never know – although one daughter’s theory that he
killed himself to protect his family from himself is as good an explanation as any.
The home video footage we see of Paul when he was alive could be disturbing to
be sure – but it’s also clear he loved his children all the same.
The film, directed by Lucy Cohen,
assembles all that old footage of Paul and his family, and combines it with
current footage – most of the film takes place in the present as they struggle.
None of the family members are “okay” – but as they say in the film, “it’s okay
not to be okay”. The doc portrays them as they try to move forward – with each
triumph coming almost with a setback at the same time – or shortly after.
Vickie is not immune to the problems herself – her husband had hated clutter,
and the house was fairly empty when he was alive – she has overcompensated the
other way now, and is bordering on a hoarder. The youngest daughter Pippa seems
to be struggling the most out of all the children – she was only six when her
father killed himself, and her memory of him is fuzzy at best – watching a
video of him, she breaks down, because he doesn’t have the same voice that she
had in her head of his.
Watching the film, I was worried
that at some point, the film would cross the line, and begin to exploit this family
– but I don’t think it ever does. It is honest and respectful of them and their
process, which is a complicated one for which there is no manual to get
through. Mental health is still something we do not talk enough about – and at
the very least, the Shanks family talks about it – and the documentary about
them will hopefully open some sort of dialogue as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment