Dreadfully Boring

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is largely the story of "Genie" the child who from the age of 20 months until age 13 and a half spent her entire life tied either to a children's potty toilet during the day or to her bed at night. Nobody in the family was allowed to speak to her. If she cried out her father beat her and growled at her like a dog. Only at age 13, in 1970, when her legally blind mother escaped from her husband and walked into a welfare office seeking benefits, did a welfare worker contact the police, resulting in Genie's rescue. It is at this point the documentary takes over.I'd say what is missing, and NOVA only had under an hour to tell a story, is HOW did this happen? How could two parents treat a child in such a horrible way? Why was the mother even around and not in jail to be allowed to sue the hospital pertaining to her daughter's care? The documentary focuses on experiments done on trying to teach Genie speech, while simultaneously trying to socialize her, and it also talks about the 18th century French "wild child" who actually lived in the wild until he was a teen. Apparently there really is a narrow window before puberty before language, and more importantly its structure, can be learned. Both the tales of Genie and France's "wild child" seem to bear this out. The tragedy is that, after it was found that children living without language until after puberty can only go so far in learning language and socialization, the scientific community seemed to lose interest in them, and they were left to bleak existences for the rest of their lives. Genie is still alive, being cared for in a group home in California. However, she did go from foster home to foster home after the experimentation was done, was treated brutally in some of those homes, and retreated into silence once again, the same defense mechanism she had known in the first 13 years of her life.The condensed version of the back story that the documentary does not have time to explore is that the abuse was caused by Genie's father believing that she was mentally retarded because of a problem that she had with her hip that caused her to move in an odd way. He was the one that enforced the complete isolation of his daughter, whose real name is Susan. Her dad had been abused as a child himself, given a feminine name, "Pearl", after his mother rather than his father, causing him to be bullied relentlessly as a child. "Pearl's" father died from a lightning strike when "Pearl" was still a child, and his mother then ran a brothel out of her home, not even trying to hide from her son what was going on. "Pearl" changed his name to Clark, and at age 43 married an almost blind woman who was twenty years younger. He did not want children, but in those days reliable birth control did not exist yet. Thus the Wileys had four children, two of which died in infancy under mysterious circumstances that may have been caused by the father's own violence. One son, John, lived, and was allowed to go to school, but was not allowed to socialize. The turning point in Clark Wiley's insanity came when his mother was killed by a hit and run driver in 1958 and no criminal charges were pursued. At that point he felt society had failed him completely and he moved the entire family into his mother's house and began to impose complete isolation on himself and his family from what he considered a callous and uncaring world. Since the entire family lived in isolation and in fear of Clark Wiley, who beat them all for the tiniest infractions, and often sat around with a shotgun in his lap, you can understand a little bit more why underage John would not speak up and why Genie's blind mother would also do nothing.When John became 18 he left home, and at that time Mrs. Wiley made her escape, with Genie in tow. Although she was arrested along with her husband for Genie's abuse, Clark Wiley killed himself at home the morning of their arraignment leaving a note saying "John will understand." Dorothy, his wife, had her charges dismissed probably because of everything I have told you about her violent husband.So, that is Susan/Genie's back story, the tale of how abuse begets abuse, and thus Clark Wiley reminds me of a quote from the 1986 film "Manhunter" - "As a child, my heart bleeds for him. Someone took a little boy and turned him into a monster. But as an adult... as an adult, he's irredeemable."

The neglect Genie suffered as a young child boggles the mind. Locked in a dark room, tied to a potty-chair, Genie never learned basic concepts like walking and talking. The shots of her walking through the grass immediately after being rescued are heartbreaking. Her walk reminds me of a new born dear getting its feet underneath. But this wasn't a newborn, Genie was more than 10 years-old before she took her "first" steps. Her story is amazing and riveting. I know that some of her caretakers were trying to do what they thought was best, but more than a few were in it for themselves. I'm not sure Genie could have ever been "saved", but I wish she had been given more of a chance.Anyway, Genie's story is nicely presented. The film includes a number of interviews with many of the people actually in charge of Genie's care. The addition of the film clips showing Genie's progress nicely reinforces the interviews. The effect Genie had on everyone who came into contact with her is easy to see. Without the film clips, you don't have much of a show. The story of the French "wild child" from the early 19th Century, while interesting, often felt like padding (hence my 9/10 and not 10/10). I was also impressed by the film's pacing and timing. I remained glued to the screen throughout. It's a very nicely put together documentary.

I unfortunately had my previous review deleted because of an abuse report filled out by someone else... So I've decided to say what I think of this but if I step on anyone's toes to such an extent that they just couldn't see this review up, this is unintentional. This is a very real thing that I really really respect to an extent that I wouldn't ever deliberately step on any toes.I watched this when I was about 15 years old, being a High Schooler, I had about as much interest in what they taught as an elderly person would the tropes of today. Well, it turns out when I watched this that it was the complete opposite of the usual stuff. I was fixated on this to such an extent that when they had to stop halfway through to end the class and go to lunch the first thing I did was go on the nearest computer and find out, because the next class I had was days later. I felt so sorry for this kid, I had to know. I even managed to sought out Mockingbird Don't Sing - an amazingly close depiction of what is presented here.I just wrote that just so you can see where I'm coming from. This does tell the events here but something I haven't touched upon is that it does dive slightly into other cases of "wild children" and talks about children that didn't grow up nurtured, at least not in the way we are of walking around, talking, interacting with other people as opposed to these kids interacting with nobody. I'd say if you have the slightest interest in psychology, give this a watch.