Review of You See Me (2015) by Chad M — 09 Sep 2015
A documentary ten years in the making, "You See Me" is made almost entirely of a family's home video footage, and its narrator is a daughter within the family. Unsuitable for the modern, stimulate-me-with-spectacle Hollywood audience, the filmmaker draws a portrait of her father that is deeply emotional without being sentimental. Her portrait shows the ways that a human being, born in a vacuum of love, cannot help but wound those that matter most to him, because he never learned to navigate a space of vulnerability. The early wounds of the filmmaker's father - desperate for the validation of his mother - closed quickly on him as scars, yet they managed to scar the family he was raising as well.
Remarkably, those scars are reopened when the filmmaker's father has a stroke, and - through the love of his wife and children - they are healed properly, beautifully, as can only happen when one is forgiven by those he injures. This documentary is a character study of the highest order, shedding light on the ways a single person can make all the difference in the world simply by being who he is.
By opening her home to us, Linda Brown has produced a psychological masterpiece that can only be understood through the complicated lens of family.
This review of You See Me (2015) was written by Chad M on 09 Sep 2015.
You See Me has generally received positive reviews.
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