This film offers a rare and vivid portrait of the adolescent psyche, captured with striking accuracy. On the surface, it tells the story of a 13‑year‑old boy, Jamie, accused of the brutal murder of a classmate.

But if we look deeper, what unfolds is the slow collapse of a young person’s inner world, in which no reliable objects exist to hold his mind together and protect it from psychic disintegration. It is a chronicle of how psychic emptiness forms in the absence of an understanding and accepting Other.

Several moments in the film deeply affected me. Foremost is the chasm between parent and child—particularly between Jamie and his mother—which illustrates a total absence of emotional connection. Yes, the mother is physically present, but psychically she is utterly unavailable, consumed by her own preoccupations. The father is no different, though perhaps for other reasons.

The contact between parents and son is reduced to the closed door of his bedroom. They no longer even try to knock. The locked door here is a metaphor for isolation; confronted with it, the parents simply abandon the attempt at contact—not because Jamie refuses to speak, but because they have already surrendered.

Jamie calls his father to wish him a happy birthday and, believing no one else is listening, says he wants to confess to killing the girl. His mother, who has inadvertently overheard the conversation, finds nothing better to ask than how he is being fed now.

The father puts Jamie into baseball, then boxing, though Jamie loves to draw. When others mock his lack of athletic success, the father burns with shame. Jamie sees this shame. And the father, in turn, knows Jamie sees him, but cannot help himself. He finds nothing better to do than avert his gaze.

This is not merely parental emotional unavailability—it is their unconscious capitulation in the face of their son’s pain. In psychoanalytic terms, it is a failure of containment: the absence of an object capable of receiving and metabolizing the child’s destructive emotions, then returning them in a digestible form. Jamie is locked inside his own fears, burning with helplessness, dread, and loneliness. And the parental figures do not come to his aid—not even in his imagination.

The second moment that shocked me was the scene with the court‑appointed psychologist. Over the course of five sessions, it seems a fragile initial alliance forms between them. The boy begins to trust her: he shares intimate thoughts, offers associations, and hopes this adult actually sees and understands him.

Then, with chilling abruptness, she tells him this is their final session. He cannot believe it. He flares into rage and despair, shouting: “Do you even like me a little? Just as a person—do you like me?” In this question, one hears the cry of his wounded soul, a plea for recognition. As if asking: “Am I truly so monstrous that I cannot be loved simply for who I am?”

Her answer lands like a verdict: “I’m just doing my job. I’m expected elsewhere.” This shatters Jamie’s fragile hope for a good object—for an internal figure capable of withstanding pain, aggression, and guilt. It is not merely a refusal of affection; it confirms his most basic terror: you are wanted by no one, important to no one, interesting to no one.

Bullying at school acts as a powerful catalyst for the catastrophe unfolding inside Jamie. We see a teenager left entirely alone with his tragedy from beginning to end. No one looks deeper—past his rage—into the despair, the raw pain, the longing for an object that perhaps never existed.

Violence is always born of suffering. Thus, the killing of the girl enacts his fantasy of annihilating the rejecting (and simultaneously seductive) object. This act is an external projection of the storm in his inner world—a desperate cry: “I can’t take this anymore!” It is his attempt to escape total helplessness, to feel, if only for a moment, in control.

Finally, the closing scene with the father. He enters his son’s now‑empty room, sits on the bed, and begins to weep bitterly. Instead of his son, he tucks in a teddy bear and says: “I’m so sorry, son.” It is a tragic moment of realization—arriving far too late.

He weeps not only for his son, but for himself—for the man who could not remain in contact with his child, who lost interest in him, who stopped speaking his language. He wonders when the point of no return was reached. Where did he go wrong? Is he to blame for the boy becoming who he is? He can hardly bear to believe it.

He asks his wife how they managed to raise their daughter—who, as it turns out, was also bullied at school—yet she never killed anyone. “The same way we raised our son,” she replies. Indeed, they raised their children the only way they knew—likely as they themselves had been raised. There are few other scripts: this is how my father and grandfather lived, or this is how my mother and grandmother were.

This is a multilayered story—about the child’s suffering, the parents’ suffering, and the challenges of contemporary society. But what I most wanted to reflect on was what, in my view, happens inside the boy’s mind.