Review of Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) by Tal G — 08 Apr 2018

I was not expecting the height of the horror, the depth of the emotion, and the prevailing goodness that was in this deeply personal documentary.

This is simply a perfect documentary. It's as if Kurt took his entire soul and poured it into this movie, along with the souls of all the people he interviewed here. It's expertly paced, splicing interviews of family and friends along with the tragic tale of Andrew and Zachary. Basically, this movie is perfectly structured and punctuated. It hammers in the important parts, never lets us forget what this is really about. Its exploration of goodness, love, compassion, a sense of community, and the life of Andrew himself, shines bright and sweeps you up with it.

It's incredibly impressive, since alongside these amazing things we get to see some truly vile, evil, and horrifyingly incompetent things. Shirley, government bureaucracies, multiple failures of public service on all the relevant fronts. It truly shatters the mind to witness the gargantuan level of ineptitude shown in the Andrew/Zachary case. I cannot comprehend why such an event had to even occur for any calls for change to emerge.

I feel like this is an immensely important documentary, and for different reasons for different people. For its artistry, its emotional depth, its inspirational nature, its cautionary nature, its examination of governmental failures... It's truly important. I'm glad I've seen it.