The Reunion (2013) User Reviews

Reunion hell

[stensson · 8/10 · 3 December 2013]

It's a not so uncommon movie subject, this one about reunions which become life-changing drama. But Anna Odel's version is shakening. She meets her old class after 20 years and gives a speech. It's about hierarchies, power, games and one of the greatest sadist joys: Falsely making somebody believe you're in love with her.

The first half of the film tells about the party, which is a humiliating disaster for Anna. In the second part, she confronts some persons from the class. What's the greatest bully victory? Making someone feel she wasn't bullied at all.

It's not a perfect film, but one you will remember if you have any experience at all of hierarchies in school and other places.

Society

[Shadowplayed · 8/10 · 7 March 2015]

Simple, almost documentary style of this film really adds up to realism, as if easily relatable story wasn't realistic enough. Painfully so, for those with similar experiences that had plagued their school years. And those who knew a guy that knew a guy alike...It's very 'dogmatic' in approach, as far as goals, psychological portrayal and cinematography goes.

The opening tricks us into believing Anna's project was a real deal, and only later we get to learn the timeline of events. In fact, apart from the basic premise, whole world of characters opens up slowly, but the pace remains brisk and on point. The Reunion never wanders or drifts off, it stays focused on the protagonist, her project, estranged schoolmates and her adult life as famous artist.

Universal theme of peer violence/bullying and very sharp insight into social hierarchy (especially apparent in its rawest during formative, school years) are nicely captured, however, for those hoping for typical filmsy 'revenge' scenario, this film might seem unsatisfying and anticlimactic. Because it was going for realism, and haven't lost the focus at any time.

Lots of close-ups of the faces during interviews Anna was conducting for the project with her former classmates, lots of awkward dialogues and confrontations. What strikes me is how much people actually change while trying to fit in and fill the adult's shoes. So, instead of being honest and emotionally open - albeit insensitive or cruel while doing so....the former child now adult caters to mentality and cultural patterns fully, becomes hypocritical, polite and nice while basically still shunning and isolating the unpopular people and keeping them out of their inner circle just as before. In much more sophisticated and appropriate manner, cause they learned manners and became civilized adults with little to no recollection of their former selves.

Bullying aside...in such highly civilized society such as this, one has a hard time picturing successful people with developed social skills and even temper, very PC - such as Anna's former classmates - as once primitive bunch who were relentlessly hellbent on humiliating and ostracizing their peer. Oh how much we learn!

Not really, if only how to lie and mask our resentment and hostility better. Basically, how to act appropriately. But basic instincts, goals don't change that much. What does change is execution.

But Anna's film and her 'revenge' unmasks the people and while exorcising her own demons she confronts the culprits subjecting them to long buried picture of themselves and their friends. That's not how they want to see themselves, that is not what they are now, not how they'd like to be remembered. Well, you can'd undo, but can try and fix the past mistakes, if you can face them. If you perceive them as wrongdoings at all. Sometimes I think...we never really leave high school, do we?

A different perspective over the bullying issue

[juliosperb · 10/10 · 16 August 2014]

Unlike most bullying films, which tends to show the bullying itself, Återträffen focuses on the consequences of those actions in adulthood. The main character, Anna, is a successful famous artist who was bullied in school, as a child/teenager, for 9 years. The film is divided into 2 parts.

Part one starts with a reunion party, 20 years after school's end. Anna uses this opportunity to say all that she didn't have the strength and courage to say when a child. Despite Anna's portrait being very well executed, the attention is easily deviated to the expressions of her former classmates. The hypocrisy shown by them is what one can expect, at least what I deeply expected. People just have a hard time admitting their mistakes, specially when those mistakes can tear one's world apart. Even more when this one is a child, an innocent child.

Part two happens after the reunion, which didn't happen like showed in part one. We discover it was nothing but an What-If. The truth is: Anna was never invited for the real reunion. What we saw was just a movie that she decided to make about it, about how she thought it would have been. She then starts contacting her former classmates and shows them, individually (or in small groups), her movie. Again, the expressions are incredible. This time, though, the excuses for why they did that are even more deranged. You can clearly see that deep down they know that what they did was wrong.

You may feel that the ending is somewhat inconclusive, since nothing big happens, but that's just how things are, how the world works.

The soundtrack isn't particularly perfect, but it suits the film pretty well and also have some memorable moments.

The acting is superb. From the bullied to the bullies. You can easily feel disgusted by how the bullies deal with the shocking truth. Just watch it for yourselves.

Maybe you were bullied or you were a bully. Maybe you were simply someone who stood there, watching someone being bullied. Or maybe you did something to stop it. The thing is, nearly all of us have seen, done or suffered from it, but not all may realize that it did happen. Because it is not comfortable, because it was wrong.

To me, this film was something entirely incredible. It is far from perfect, but as a whole, it is a rare 10/10.

The Reunion

[Magenta_Bob · 9/10 · 25 March 2014]

I've had periods of feeling properly bullied, I've done things to people lower in the social hierarchy than myself that I really regret, but most of all I've been a silent bystander, and Anna Odell explores the guilt of all three parties, as well as the nature of memory and our tendency to dodge our responsibility, in an intense, confrontational and utterly depressing (yet surprisingly accessible) piece.

The first part, in which she stages a fictionalized version of the class reunion she was not invited to in real life (an approach that brings to mind her controversial art installation where she staged a psychosis in Stockholm), is pretty incredible in and of itself, but the second part where she confronts her classmates with the film shown in the first half really seals the deal.

After being uniformly hailed by critics the movie has suffered some backlash, and was even called a rape-and-revenge film by some, but I think the fact that Odell's motives are questionable doesn't make the film any worse, just more complex and interesting.

Good setup, lousy payoff

[ExploringFilm · 5/10 · 20 May 2014]

Starting out, I liked this movie's beginnings, with a reunion from hell unfolding like a scene in a play, in the same vein of Thomas Vinterberg's "Festen". However, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that the directors aim is not to create drama or a slice of life drama-documentary, but rather an attempt of cold, dialectic dissection between the bully(s) and the bullied.

The film only marginally succeeds at this, and the resolution is prehaps all too unsatisfying as a film seen in the cinema. It feels like a vanity project. The storytelling is self righteous and self-obsessed, the director being the main character of the film; she's surrounded by the 'actors' in her fake reimagination of a school reunion. Here her own performance isn't exactly giving us much to go on, and her backstory is only referred to sporadically, giving us little chance to sympathise. The other cast members play well enough, but they too, seem trapped by material that is too narrowly focused on analyzing, rather than showing the true consequences of bullying and abuse in institutions.

Shame for a film with a good start to fail so miserably in its execution.

Original narration and visualisation of issues around high school bullying and its prolonged aftermath for the rest of people's lifes

[JvH48 · 9/10 · 1 April 2014]

I saw this film at the Rotterdam film festival 2014 (IFFR). It is divided in two very distinct parts. The first half shows a reunion party where school mates meet again after 20 years. Our main character, though not invited, holds a strong speech about bullying and shunning, and how it haunted her for the past 20 years. It is not clear upfront that the reunion party, with all ugly details touched upon during our main character's speech, is an art project with a specific purpose leading to the second half of this film. The latter fact is revealed later on, also letting us know that all party-goers (except herself) were actors. For a long time you think it is all for real, and you feel very uneasy when watching it. Her initial speech is only the beginning, yet the least problematic in comparison. It gets much worse when others at the party react on her speech, and she forcefully rebuts all remarks. Eventually, she is thrown out. We can only assume that the happy atmosphere was destroyed for good after she was gone. Alas, it solves nothing, and if this was all that this movie had to offer, we would be inclined to ask our money back.

Luckily, the ultimate purpose of the staged reunion party becomes clear in the second half. It makes this film really interesting, setting it apart from many other movies about the same topic. She approaches several of her real (not the actors) former class mates, to show them the film that recorded the fictitious reunion party, and to talk about it individually within the confines of her home. Many class mates invent all sorts of excuses and don't show up, while some of them do appear and are surprised to see her view on what happened 20 years ago. She even made a visual diagram of a "class hierarchy", showing herself at the lowest level, as a means to illustrate her evaluation of the situation back then. She also went at considerable length to contact some of the unwilling non-responders, even to approach them on their workplace or at their front door, in order to confront them with their common past. It leads to interesting discussions, all of those proving her point that each of them experienced said past very differently.

All in all, my strong feelings of "I'd rather not be here" embarrassment was comparable with seeing Seidl's Hundstage or the more recent "Paradise" trilogy. That applies to the first half (the staged party) as well as the second half (confronting her former class mates). Yet I think that the second half might have achieved a more balanced effect when she had succeeded in getting to appear some of the more accomplished types (in the eyes of their peers), in other words those deemed at the top of the class hierarchy and successful in today's life too. In the first half we saw several who we can assume in that category. When thinking along that line, I got stuck with a feeling of some missed chances for a better end result. Still, a wonderful film with an original twist on the subject. It ranked 32th (out of 200) for the audience award with average score 4.238 (out of 5).

The definition of passive aggressive

[maxwicen-348-369319 · 3/10 · 28 September 2015]

So this is a revenge flick basically. But instead of blood and gore, you'll get awkward scenes with the antagonist and the protagonists. It kind of feels like when people get in their mid 30s and 50s they completely forget how children think and act. And all bullying is because the children are malevolent and evil.

This is one of those movies where it's not clear if the main character is really the hero, or if she is actually the villain. Using her newfound power -she now being a successful filmmaker. To take revenge on people that had unintentionally hurt her in the past.

The movie is so incredibly passive aggressive it's just mind blowing. And the storytelling is so incredibly one sided - her perspective of all the events that were bad in her childhood. She has zero empathy for her classmates as an adult, which is probably why she had no friends as a child.

But because this movie is about bullying, everyone must rate it super high. It deserves 3 stars out of 10, and that's for successful awkward scenes.

Your past touches those who were there.

[krakudden · 8/10 · 11 February 2014]

A film that plays with the idea of confronting persons that has caused you harm in your past, in this case the school years - how would they react and what would happen? From two perspectives the confrontation is first adapted in film and thereafter the reactions are explored. Anna uses her school reunion party, to which she has not been invited, as the set for a short film showing(and proving the fears of inviting her) what might had happened if she had attended and chosen to speak her mind on her experience of a period of bullying and being left out of the class fellowship. Next she shows this film to actual classmates portrayed in the film as a ground for reactions and discussions on what really went down and how people look upon this time and their roles in class hierarchy. Well portrayed and told story with amazing acting!

Anders: "This is a party"

[stephanlinsenhoff · 10/10 · 15 November 2013]

Anna Odells first movie 'The Reunion' goes up today, 15 November 2013. In Sweden. Already she received two awards and more will follow. But she will have to pay for this controversially (the ambivalent reactions waiting around the corner) film: in focus her experience in school. Uninvited she comes (too late) to the party of reunion. The one who arranged welcomes everybody: "Great that so many have come. Cheers!" Anna interrupts: reminding them all what they did to her and with her. She was the Nobody and had to be. In every group is a container for the bad things: "A daily battle. Not revenge but to tell today what I could not tell yesterday. I was the one who was pushed, beaten, laughed at, not looked at and not seen." And it happens again: interrupted in her speech. The same for the No-body today. Chaos.

She is by far not alone with this experience, called mobbing. Yesterday, today, Tmorrow. Many of us have to live with it, unable to defend us. Laughed at. Unseen. The object for shame. Not one of the crowd Not In- but Out-side, beside the group. Qietly suffering for what they are and never can be. How react? As Anna Odell? It took courage to come late and cross (not for the first time) the forbidden line everybody accepts and respects? Today not as art performance but the actor and director.

The setup are two parts, the second as documentary. When she planned the idea, she asked her former class if they want to take 'their' part in this reality-movie. They denied. Of course. Actors took their place. How will the real people of her class from yesterday, today adults, react that actors took their part? To be in public forced to look into the mirror is everything but not easy. For Anna Odell it does not matter, what ever the reactions. The Nobody she is for them. She has nothing to loose.

The movie reminds not only of the speech in the Danish Dogma 1 movie 'The Celebration', 1998, Thomas Vinterberg but also of Gina's speech in The Girl in the Café, 2005. Even them had nothing to loose, knowing what happens after their speech.

Change? Nothing will change. For many this (in front) mirror can be a reminder of our society: in school and today at work. Change? Perhaps by small islands. Those small islands amidst of the daily battle, that Slavoj Zizek describes as 'spaces'. Not left-right, black-white but by the unrecognized and unseen 'Between' as possibility: our responsibility. ............... ...............................

Return 2014-10-11 Som years have passed. At that time I hired the movie, keen to see it as it washighlighted by many and in the media. Now I bought the DVD to see itnot in a haste. I even re saw again Thomas Vinterbergs 'TheCelebration'. I still believe that this movie is so much better, sorough and true as Anna Odells, she must have seen it, bleak copy. Shewanted and pulled back.

BUT: the reason why i return: she should have had the courage to go beyond. More. Out to infinity and return on the other side. THEN most of us should have be happy. More. With this action she could have handled a for us important issue different. Objectivly "and" personally. She asked her former class to take their part. They refused. Actors took their part. I wondered if some of them made a police issue of it as they all where drawn into the light. But it did not happen. Why? Answer 1. They where afraid that more by a trial should surface Answer 2. They did not care

A movie without goal

[mats-bjorkman · 3/10 · 12 January 2015]

It's not easy to understand why this movie has gotten the raving reviews that it has - not that it's a badly played/performed one - more that it's a movie without a real context/goal. Anna Odell directs and stars in a fictional movie that tells us how a class re-union of hers _might_ have become, if she'd gotten invited to it in the beginning! She isn't invited, and being bullied in school when she was a kid/teenager, this is her way of getting some late kind of revenge. Anna wants to show this movie to hear real former classmates to see their reactions. Their reactions is probably what you'd expect - some ppl just doesn't claim to recognize the picture that Anna has of her childhood, and those who do - doesn't really have anything to say to Anna that eases her pain/helps her understanding. Since the Movie doesn't really address the problems with bullies in schools, or gives some kind of understanding _why_ she couldn't have handled this pain of hers several years ago already, then the Movie kinda falls flat. If you're into Movies, then you'd probably can claim that it's artistic/groundbreaking and showing us something we haven't seen Before. For me, it's just a movie that shows a quite sad/disturbing side of Anna, we cannot really emphatize with her - cause she's behaving quite nonrational throughout the entire history. The Movie leads nowhere, gives no real answers to any question, and makes you wonder "what have I just seen, what was the point with it all" rather than giving you this "A-ha"-experience, that I suppose was her purpose of the film. If you're a cineast, you might like this movie still because of it's way of being 'different' - but if you're like me, like most ppl going to a movie - a regular joe that isn't a cineast, but someone that wants to get amused or getting something to think of - then you'd probably wonder why the heck this movie has gotten the good reviews that it has.

Could be so much more

[Movie_Reviews · 5/10 · 15 March 2014]

The first half is great, although Anna Odells personality and shaky acting makes even me want to bully her. The second half is just a waste of time, with some kind of pseudo-documentary, "The Office" style. The film more or less only consists of a camera shooting close-ups of people so it is not a movie for those expecting any grand scenes or brilliant camera technique. Anna Odells acting is crap so why she won a price for best actress is astounding.

The guys playing the bullies, though, has acting skills: They were really good. It is a pity that most Movie Awards has one price for "Best male" and one for "Best female". Stupid really. Because if the two best actors are of the same sex then one of the prices, that should rightfully have gone to them, goes to someone else (with the right sex), even if this someone else is crap. As in this case.