A Girl Like Her (2015)

A Girl Like Her: Directed by Amy S. Weber. With Hunter King, Lexi Ainsworth, Jimmy Bennett, Amy S. Weber. Jessica Burns enlists the help of her best friend, Brian, in order to document the relentless harassment she’s received from her former friend, Avery Keller, one of South Brookdale High School’s most popular students.

“Saw this movie by chance – was looking for something to watch, opened up Netflix, and it was on the main screen as a suggested title. With a cast of mostly unknowns, I wasnu0026#39;t expecting much. But I was surprised.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe acting was mostly very good. Lexi Ainsworth was very believable as the bullied Jessica. I cried along with her, as someone who was also bullied in high school. (To a lesser extent, and before cell phones and social media were really a thing yet.)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFor the most part, the story was believable and moving. My only problem with it was that it reinforces the false assumption that bullies usually have a difficult home life. This was the kind of information that was generally believed to be true back when I was in school (graduated high school in 2002), but we know a lot more today. Most bullies come from good families and have good lives.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBy the end of the film, I felt like we were supposed to feel a certain amount of sympathy for Avery. But despite how things were portrayed – her life was really not that bad at all. I felt that a lot of things were exaggerated. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAvery wasnu0026#39;t bullying Jessica because her parents fought sometimes and her mom was a little controlling, she was bullying Jessica because she was a cruel, mean, heartless, narcissistic brat. No one with a conscience could treat another person that way. Period. No sympathy for bullies.”