I've seen this film maybe three times now. I've thoroughly enjoyed the film but there are couple elements that in my opinion are not quite believable. First off let me say that this is only my opinion and I have no expertise in spousal abuse.
The premise for this movie begins with a mother trying to get herself and her three kids away from her clearly very abusive husband. Now the oldest of her three kids is a teenager-- I'd say about 16. Are we suppose to believe that this mother tolerated this obviously violent man's abuse for 16 years of marriage and then suddenly decided she needed to get away after all these years. I know some women in abusive relations don't do anything about the problem at first because they are in love with their man but 16 years?! I'm just not sure I believe it would happen that way.
The other element that seems less than realistic is the grandparents-- parents of the abusive husband. More often or not an abusive spouse is as abusive as he/she is because thats how he/she was treated as a child. Its a chain. In this movie the parents of the abusive husband make one or two appearances and they are the nicest, sweetest older couple imaginable. So where did all the husband's violence come from? This doesn't make sense to me.
As I said I'm no expert in these matters; this is just my humble opinion but if it wasn't for these two elements I would have likely given this film a 10. As it is I gave it an 8.
The premise for this movie begins with a mother trying to get herself and her three kids away from her clearly very abusive husband. Now the oldest of her three kids is a teenager-- I'd say about 16. Are we suppose to believe that this mother tolerated this obviously violent man's abuse for 16 years of marriage and then suddenly decided she needed to get away after all these years. I know some women in abusive relations don't do anything about the problem at first because they are in love with their man but 16 years?! I'm just not sure I believe it would happen that way.
The other element that seems less than realistic is the grandparents-- parents of the abusive husband. More often or not an abusive spouse is as abusive as he/she is because thats how he/she was treated as a child. Its a chain. In this movie the parents of the abusive husband make one or two appearances and they are the nicest, sweetest older couple imaginable. So where did all the husband's violence come from? This doesn't make sense to me.
As I said I'm no expert in these matters; this is just my humble opinion but if it wasn't for these two elements I would have likely given this film a 10. As it is I gave it an 8.