Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father

A heart-wrenching film, Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father, will leave you emotionally exhausted. This is a film that shows the best of humanity, through the pure love of friendship, family, and two amazing parents. But it also depicts the worst of humanity, and a broken judicial system. Some have argued that the movie is manipulative, and that's a somewhat fair argument, although I disagree with the use of the word manipulative and its negative connotation. A good man was murdered, and his friend created this movie, initially to memorialize him, and to share the film with friends and family only. But as new events sprang from this tragedy, the film changed, along with the purpose of the film. Does the filmmaker have an agenda? Sure, but I think every filmmaker has an agenda. Given the highly subjective nature of the documentary, and how close the director is to the subject, I see it less as manipulation and more as an unfettered emotional release of love, hatred, anger, and frustration in the face of tragic circumstances as they are unfolding, channeled through a camera's lens. It's impossible to really critique such a film. I did find moments in the film to be overwrought and heavy-handed, too frenetic at times, overly stylized in places, but certainly nothing that robs the movie of its real power; it never distracts and the movie maintains its firm grip on our hearts, squeezing and never letting go.

Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father
Score: 70%