Customer Reviews

Silence of the Heart

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this film in health class during the depression unit. I really don't know why I'm reviewing it, but I'll say it's a heavy movie that deals with the aftermath of teen suicide. Suicide is never an easy topic to talk about with your family or friends, and hopefully, you'll never have to experiance it. I still haven't experianced one in my life yet, but I hope that I never have too. Anyway, back to the film.

Skip (Michael), the film's victim, is having a hard time. His SAT grades were low, he feels negelected by his peers, and he was shut down by his dreamgirl. So, one night, he couldn't take it anymore, and he drove his car off a steep cliff. The film then delves into the aftermath of his parents, his sister, and his best friend.

The acting isn't perfect, but it's powerful enough to truly get a message across to it's viewers. The ending scene, with his mother standing on the cliff's edge telling the viewers that "It's better to live" is truly affecting, and left half the class in or on the breaking point of tears.

If you need a movie to talk to your kids or family to about the topic of suicide and see how it affects the victim's family and friends, this is the film to get. Even for an old 80's film, It's heavy, powerful and truly gets a message across to it's viewer.

Suicide is not an easy subject and this movie was able to focus not only on why a person would commit suicide but also on how easy it is to miss how much pain a person could be in so that they would contemplate or commit suicide. I liked this movie because it examined the various reactions and rationales that people go through when they come face to face with the suicide of a family member or a friend. While the plot and some of the acting appeared to be a little on the superficial side, it was an honest appraisal of a difficult and always timly subject.

I think this was an AfterSchool Special when I saw it in the 80's. Very Powerful. Charlie Sheen is super! Chad Lowe is amazing! Even the Goofy girl that played the sister is great!
I saw this recently on DVD and it brought back all the same teenage angst I experienced in the 80's when I viewed this flick the first time. It's important to talk about suicide...this film is a good reminder.

=^..^=

Teen suicide, one of the hot-button issues of the 1980s, is the sensitive subject of this made-for-TV movie. Mariette Hartley plays a mother going through a painful, protracted divorce who realizes too late the effect it's having on her troubled son (Chad Lowe). Other on-the-brink young actors who appear in this 1984 film include a pre-Platoon Charlie Sheen and Sherilyn Fenn (six years before "Twin Peaks").

Chad Lowe plays a young student who feels he has let down his loved ones when he gets bad grades. He commits suicide, and the rest of the film follows the aftermath.

The 1984 TV movie is pretty good, but being a TV movie, don't expect feature level production values.

Interestingly enough, there are many famous names among the cast that you might recognize.

Besides Chad Lowe, Mariette Hartley ("WIOU", "The Morning Program", Spock's girlfriend in a classic Trek episode), and Howard Hesseman ("WKRP", "Head of the Class"), star as the dead teen's parents.

Charlie Sheen, Jaleel White (Steve Urkel on "Family Matters"), and Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne on "Twin Peaks"), are also featured in the cast, to varying degrees.

Although made in 1984, the topic is still timely, and the film can still be affecting.