Detachment

most of my reviews for films are pretty simple one liners and silly little remarks but this film i think hit me in a spot so sore and untouched that no piece of media or literature have been able to reach so today i will overshare in the summer of 2025 i was a college dropout, an alcoholic, and recovering from several drug problems. the vast majority of my friends had left me, my father hated me because i had come out about sexual abuse to my family and they told him, my girlfriend at the time abused me so badly that i have knife scars along my body which she left and i flinch at every sudden movement, i had lost my job from being so sick at work from the amount of everclear i would drink nightly, and my grandparents were kicking me out of the house. knowing that i had nothing, i wanted to die. so i took a double-barreled shotgun from my grandfather's closet and loaded it with shells, fully resolved to take my own life. i left no note because i felt as though there was nothing remarkable to mention of the event. i put the gun to the roof of my mouth and took what i thought was my final breath, closed my eyes, and pulled both triggers. i didn't know that the gun didn't function. there was no sound, not even a click, and i just sat there in my grandparents' bedroom not knowing what to do. i put everything back and got a glass of milk and went back to bed. i'm a lot happier now, though the walls i have built now bar me from experiencing the joys that i had lived prior. i got my shit together, i'm sober, and - ironically enough - i'm a substitute teacher now, too. i watched this movie a long time ago and i didn't think too much of it, but going back today i've experienced for the first time something that every aspect and every message resonates with something in my life. it's difficult in such dire circumstances to find a relation to a piece in a way that makes you feel seen but this did it. it's rough around the edges but i feel as though films like this encapsulate the purpose of art, not to be a polished spectacle but to bear meaning and the complicated emotions that come about with life. i'm not a film critic and i won't act like my letterboxd is more than a shitpost but this one is really important to me. i hope that i can change lives for the better in a way that no one tried to with me.