maxwicen-348-369319 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.

JvH48 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).

Niklas Karlsson 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!

Niklas Pivic At a school reunion, a person starts speaking about how she was bullied throughout their nine years together. That's how this film starts; the plot obviously reminded me of Thomas Vinterberg's "The Celebration", but they differ, mainly because of two facts on the side of "The Reunion": a) it's supposedly based on facts that happened to the lead character/the director, Anna Odell, and b) it's cut into two parts. Odell treats this film as an art project, and as such, it loses some to her non-acting skills but wins a lot due to its quite non-sentimental views of what school gave and took away; by "school" I definitely mean the pupils, the teachers and the parents.The unorthodox build of the film and Odell's clumsiness works to the film's advantage. The real strength of the film is, I think, where it displays some ugly sides that most humans try to hide when the magnifying glass is upon them; bullies play down the blame, the guilt and responsibility, while the obvious victim is shunned, and history is repeated. All are responsible and no-one can say their "child self" is another part of some universe that is not touched by their current responsibility and mental state.Social structures, meeting your demons, fleeing your guilt, it's here.