Review of Cyber Bully

I was skeptical to watch this movie from the very start, but my friend convinced me that the film was great and had a really good message. Judging from the film's summary and the fact that it was one of those "made for TV" movies, I already had a feeling this movie was going to be bad, but I forced myself to sit through it. To me, the whole film consisted of a back and forth of the main character, Taylor, being miserable at school and being miserable at home. Her mother gave her a laptop for her birthday and says she trusts her not to go on any websites she knows she wouldn't approve of. So naturally, she makes an account on the Facebook knock-off site, Cliquesters. The social networking site seems strange enough considering the suggestive assortment of questions needed to answer in order to create an account. Not to mention the fact that about thirty seconds after Taylor makes an account, she gets a friend request from the movie's pathetic "love interest". A day or so after her account has been created, Taylor logs on to find her account has been hacked. Her status has been changed to make her sound like some cheap prostitute. The strangest part of this is that the hacker turns out to be Taylor's younger brother and his friends, which leads to a plot hole because it's never explained why her brother felt the need to hack his sister's account in the first place. From this point on in the film, Taylor's life turns into an angsty teen nightmare... at least I'm sure that's what the film's producers were going for. All you need to know about what happens next is that the most popular girl in Taylor's school is posting obnoxious things online about Taylor, tons of other people join in and bully her too, and Taylor is having an overly dramatic breakdown every other scene. Also, one of Taylor's best friends creates a fake account pretending to be a boy from another school, and eventually uses that account to bully Taylor, too. That ends up creating another plot hole, because even though Taylor's best friend explains why she did it, the explanation is so weak that it still doesn't make much sense. SPOILER: In the end, some strange video is made about Taylor with some girl pretending to be her as some kind of pregnant prostitute from what I can tell. This video spontaneously pushes Taylor off the edge, causing her to post her own video stating her confusion about why she's being bullied and how it's affecting her. She then proceeds to try and overdose on pills. Luckily, her betraying best friend sees the video that Taylor had posted and rushes to Taylor's house only to find her in the bathroom having some bizarre breakdown and trouble opening a pills jar. To be honest, I started laughing at this scene. It was incredibly over the top, not to mention the odd fact that a seventeen year old is having trouble opening a jar. She's rushed to a hospital, starts going group therapy, and eventually returns to school after being absent for a little more than a week. She and her best friend end up confronting the outrageously stereotypical "popular girl" that had been bullying Taylor online. Taylor's mother also helps get a law passed against cyberbullying. When the movie ended, I sat there thinking three things. One: everyone in that movie was as pale as a vampire. Two: being a teenager myself, I didn't think that movie accurately portrayed real life situations. Three: my friend was wrong, this movie was horrible. So would I recommend this movie? No. Underneath all the over the top drama is an overall good message, but if you really want to get more information about cyberbullying, I would start looking elsewhere.