Devil's Playground
I'd heard about the concept of Rumspringa before and that this was a pretty interesting documentary on the subject. But it was my girlfriend who actually got the movie. I don't think either of us were too impressed.
The filmmakers had a potentially very interesting subject to work on. And although they claim most Amish people don't like to be filmed it still seemed like they found a way to get footage, plus audiences never like hearing excuses from filmmakers within the film. This happened a lot in the film actually. I wouldn't expect a documentary filmmaker to be able to catch absolutely everything they would want to. They can't literally be everywhere at once. But if they can't, they need to make the film around what they can. There were too many instances in this film of intertitles telling the audience about important events or talking heads telling you about something more interesting that happened when the camera was off.
Yeah a lot of the stuff that these Amish kids do when given free reign is a bit shocking, but only because you are comparing it with the Amish community they grew up in. It's certainly nothing shocking within the larger context though. I'm sure growing up we've all seen our share of stupid high school parties and know people who turned into drunks or junkies, but most of them started out in those environments so it was no surprise.
The subject is still quite interesting, so it may still be worth a watch if you have any interest in Rumspringa, but there's a lot more potential in the subject that this film failed to achieve.
Rating: 5/10