Kritiken

It is wrenching but never exploitive. It is impressively skeptical of the same mission that it takes on its shoulders: to make something positive from a senseless crime without diminishing its senselessness. This film doesn't just revisit an atrocity, it moves through it, and finds meaning in it.

A tender reconstruction of personal loss... Variably effective, this debut feature documentary from Michele Josue seeks to restore the Matt Shepard of his friends' and family's memories, and in so doing return a human symbol to a state of ordinary but beloved individuality.

Josue's approach to her personal project is ambitious in offering the fullest possible context. But the film also possesses a poetic beauty that feels underused at times; Josue shows perhaps too much restraint, as if she's not ready to deal with her lingering grief and can't acknowledge it.

The priest who met multiple times with Matt's killers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, in jail stresses the need to view them through a prism of humanity, which Josue, fighting tears, admits she can't do. It's a remarkable moment of honesty that stands in contrast to the tolerance much of the film advocates, and a feeling she would have been wise to explore even further.