So this is a revenge flick basically. But instead of blood and gore, you'll get awkward scenes with the antagonist and the protagonists. It kind of feels like when people get in their mid 30s and 50s they completely forget how children think and act. And all bullying is because the children are malevolent and evil.This is one of those movies where it's not clear if the main character is really the hero, or if she is actually the villain. Using her newfound power -she now being a successful filmmaker. To take revenge on people that had unintentionally hurt her in the past.The movie is so incredibly passive aggressive it's just mind blowing. And the storytelling is so incredibly one sided - her perspective of all the events that were bad in her childhood. She has zero empathy for her classmates as an adult, which is probably why she had no friends as a child.But because this movie is about bullying, everyone must rate it super high. It deserves 3 stars out of 10, and that's for successful awkward scenes.

It's not easy to understand why this movie has gotten the raving reviews that it has - not that it's a badly played/performed one - more that it's a movie without a real context/goal. Anna Odell directs and stars in a fictional movie that tells us how a class re-union of hers _might_ have become, if she'd gotten invited to it in the beginning! She isn't invited, and being bullied in school when she was a kid/teenager, this is her way of getting some late kind of revenge. Anna wants to show this movie to hear real former classmates to see their reactions. Their reactions is probably what you'd expect - some ppl just doesn't claim to recognize the picture that Anna has of her childhood, and those who do - doesn't really have anything to say to Anna that eases her pain/helps her understanding. Since the Movie doesn't really address the problems with bullies in schools, or gives some kind of understanding _why_ she couldn't have handled this pain of hers several years ago already, then the Movie kinda falls flat. If you're into Movies, then you'd probably can claim that it's artistic/groundbreaking and showing us something we haven't seen Before. For me, it's just a movie that shows a quite sad/disturbing side of Anna, we cannot really emphatize with her - cause she's behaving quite nonrational throughout the entire history. The Movie leads nowhere, gives no real answers to any question, and makes you wonder "what have I just seen, what was the point with it all" rather than giving you this "A-ha"-experience, that I suppose was her purpose of the film. If you're a cineast, you might like this movie still because of it's way of being 'different' - but if you're like me, like most ppl going to a movie - a regular joe that isn't a cineast, but someone that wants to get amused or getting something to think of - then you'd probably wonder why the heck this movie has gotten the good reviews that it has.

A film that plays with the idea of confronting persons that has caused you harm in your past, in this case the school years - how would they react and what would happen? From two perspectives the confrontation is first adapted in film and thereafter the reactions are explored. Anna uses her school reunion party, to which she has not been invited, as the set for a short film showing(and proving the fears of inviting her) what might had happened if she had attended and chosen to speak her mind on her experience of a period of bullying and being left out of the class fellowship. Next she shows this film to actual classmates portrayed in the film as a ground for reactions and discussions on what really went down and how people look upon this time and their roles in class hierarchy. Well portrayed and told story with amazing acting!

At a school reunion, a person starts speaking about how she was bullied throughout their nine years together. That's how this film starts; the plot obviously reminded me of Thomas Vinterberg's "The Celebration", but they differ, mainly because of two facts on the side of "The Reunion": a) it's supposedly based on facts that happened to the lead character/the director, Anna Odell, and b) it's cut into two parts. Odell treats this film as an art project, and as such, it loses some to her non-acting skills but wins a lot due to its quite non-sentimental views of what school gave and took away; by "school" I definitely mean the pupils, the teachers and the parents.The unorthodox build of the film and Odell's clumsiness works to the film's advantage. The real strength of the film is, I think, where it displays some ugly sides that most humans try to hide when the magnifying glass is upon them; bullies play down the blame, the guilt and responsibility, while the obvious victim is shunned, and history is repeated. All are responsible and no-one can say their "child self" is another part of some universe that is not touched by their current responsibility and mental state.Social structures, meeting your demons, fleeing your guilt, it's here.