Good movie but grossly overrated

Expected more

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I have seen this movie many times. It never gets easier to watch. Historically the attitude towards educating the "heathens" is very close to policy (read Maureen Lux "Medicine that Walks"). As for the portrayal of the students, the abuse was pretty tame. If they actually showed what happened at the worst schools it never would have made it to production and could be classified as a snuff film. I've met people who've been in residential schools and are now in their late 70s and early 80s, one old lady never hugged her children for fear she'd be passing on sexual abuse. For the amount of awful events there were still some teachers that tried to make a positive impact on the lives of their students like we see in the film. Overall I'd recommend it for people as a starting point for research in the area. In one of the previous comments I read about "looking for a handle to get out of a plane", however if you don't know what a plane is and have never been in one that would be irrelevant. Michelle St. John is a good actress. She was also good in "conspiracy of silence" which I also recommend.

A movie that all Canadians should see. The horror for Canada's aboriginal children living in Religious Residential Schools needs to be seen by all of our citizens. Seeing this film would be a first step in understanding the dysfunction in many aboriginal families that we often see and hear about today both off and on Canadian Native Land Reserves. Many aboriginal children were literally kidnapped from their reserves by powerful Indian Agents. This was terrifying for both the children and the families. An attempt of assimilation by the government and churches in Canada failed for the most part ruining so many lives. A very good casting and meaningful story make this a film worth watching.I would like to see this film become available to all schools in Canada.

This was a great movie I thought at portraying the native life in the schools but I thought that it was a little unbelievable. If someone was trapped in a plane the more logical choice than pounding on the window would to be try and find a handle, I thought the characters at times made foolish choices like following the road after escaping instead of going across the prairies to make it harder for the man to catch you. Other than that it was a good movie although difficult to follow the plot at times it was entertaining in some parts but a lot of the time became very, very boring which is why I only wanted to give it a 6 out of 10. I would not recommend this movie to anyone who just wanted to watch something but it would be a good in school movie as it deals with racism and a great amount of other things.

My Father is a Micmac and so am I. I'm 16 now and when i first saw this movie it was the early 90s. i must have been about 4 or 5 years old. The movie is based on Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, Canada. My father was in that school for 6 years, longer then other people who where there. My dad isn't fixated on what happened while he was at that school, unlike other people. Some people that went to shubie school for 6 months talk about all that bad things that happened to them like they were there for 10 years. You'd never even know that my dad went there. When he does talk about shubie school it's not about the horrors of what went on, it's mainly good things like how the kids there used their slices of bread like money or how if you touched someone else food it became yours. That only bad thing he ever said about that school was that the food sucked so you had to eat it really fast. To this day he still eats his food fast, it doesn't even touch the plate and it's gone.What i want to say is that i think this movie did an amazing job at portraying what went on behind the walls and that the Catholic church is messed up for thinking that they can "fix" everybody else to their standards. What happened in those schools is on some degree like what Catholic Priests molesting those children. For anyone who would really like to know more about Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, you should read "Out of The Depths" by Isabelle Knockwood. For rating i give this movie a 10 out of 10.