Stained Glass Windows (2010) Online

A young woman who's become a Goth (Cherry) finds herself both bullied and unpopular at her high school with few friends. Her father has just recently shot her mom seriously and killed himself as well. She's also facing escalating physical violence from her abusive boyfriend. Despite all this, she's found connections with a martial arts school because two of her friends have invited her on a Saturday. Gradually, she's found that she likes the school and the excellent instruction. She begins to excel and gains, strength, stamina, skill, and self-confidence. She also begins to build a better life and lose old destructive habits. As she learns to express herself and reach out to others including a wise neighbor, she's also beginning to engage with life rather than to run from it and hide. The movie is about a young woman meeting, physical, mental, and relationship challenges as well as starting to make good decisions and reaching out, asserting herself. We find her growing into a wise and strong young women beyond her years.

Although I can tell this was not an expensive movie to make, the main characters grabbed and held my attention. I got a sense of knowing Cherry's mom, her wise neighbor, and the owner of the martial arts school as well as a minister who is patient, understanding, and honest. There were also two special friends in Cherry's high-school who helped her, but had their own inner struggles and demons to shed. I thought the movie was well done, but a bit slow moving at times. It could have also used 15 or 20 minutes more time to show a little bit more of who her friends were and more on her mom too.

I found myself involved and engaged personally in the story. The story line was compelling. It reflects the difficulties that many of the people in my own family have faced growing up and catches their plight, their struggles, and their willingness to seek help and grow. They do not give up easily at all and gradually learn to cope with many societal pressures and the dysfunction in modern western society. Emelie O'Hara does a wonderful job in playing the role of Cherry, a struggling 16 year old.

STAINED GLASS WINDOWS is another in a long line of indie high school dramas tackling the subject matter of bullying. This one's rather dull and concerns a goth girl who is attacked by her peers in scenes similar to the ones at the outset of CARRIE. She decides to take up martial arts, a choice which leads to interminable training sequences that pad out half of the movie. Her sexuality comes into question as well. In the end, this is a relationship drama that's been cheaply made and is generally lacking in purpose.