Boy Interrupted (2009) on Netflix
NR20091h 32mDocumentary
At four, Evan Perry tells his mother he wants to die. Doctors doubt a child so young can be depressed, so his parents film his life to get him treatment.
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- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.7/102,548 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
Evan Perry is a loving child and a model student in New York. From the age of four he tells his mother that he wants to die, and in the mid-1990s mental health professionals are not sure that a child so young can be depressed. His parents, both filmmakers, begin recording their son's life so that doctors will believe what they are told and he can get care. At five he is diagnosed with depression and prescribed medication that does not seem to work. By seven he listens to Nirvana, writes songs about pain, and shuts himself in his room, and his parents know the behavior is not normal for his age. Serious mental illness runs in the family.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Boy Interrupted (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dana Perry recorded her son Evan at age 5 explaining his detailed suicide plan, showing how he would hang himself from his room's roof, and put the recording in the documentary.
- The footage began as documentation rather than filmmaking: in 1995, with professionals doubting that young children could be depressed, filmmaker Dana Perry knew psychiatrists would not believe her about her son Evan and started filming his life, especially when he talked about suicide.
- Evan Perry's father, Hart Perry, had a brother who was diagnosed with bipolar depression and died by suicide at 21, which drove Hart to do everything he could to prevent the same outcome for Evan.
