***/****
directed by Dana Perry
by Alex Jackson In 2005, Dana and Hart Perry's 15-year-old son Evan fulfilled a life-long obsession with suicide by jumping out his bedroom window. Documentary filmmakers by profession, the Perrys worked through their grief by making this feature-length memorial to him. Exactly the sort of thing that seems immune to criticism, the film is nonetheless admirably free of sentimentality. When Perry includes footage of herself pregnant with Evan, she does so as a professional documentarian economically conveying the depth of a mother's attachment to her offspring. Given that one of Evan's dying wishes was to be forgotten, I can't help but think that Boy Interrupted was intended, on some level at least, as an act of defiance. The last thing Evan wanted from his parents was for them to mourn his death and here they are revelling in grief over him, spiting him and refusing to let him weasel away from the consequences of his actions. Perhaps the most frightening thing about the film is that there is no mystery as to why Evan did what he did. He suffered his entire life with bipolar disorder and had manic periods of depression. As his half-brother surmises from reading his suicide note, Evan had all the same thoughts that every teenager does, only his disorder left him several times more vulnerable to their ill effects. Ever since he was a child, Evan had suicidal ideations; he was hard-wired from the very beginning to commit suicide. His actions were determined not by his environment or by choice, but first and foremost by his biology. Of course, Boy Interrupted can't be said to spread awareness of bipolar disorder or teenage suicide. As Evan's psychologist says near the end of the piece, medication and attempts at inpatient treatment simply postponed the inevitable. There is little anybody can do to stop it. Perhaps, then, it's enough that the film might have expunged a little of its makers' pain.
