A Gray State (2017)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Perfectly adorable

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Last week I watched this documentary. I have a very negative opinion about the people who made this documentary and the people who promoted it. I was looking for a documentary or a film by David Crowley himself and his crew, instead, I watched a documentary with the same title as his movie was going to have and a plot that lead from the beginning to the result that he did kill his family and himself. It is quite annoying that the director and producer used the title of the movie that he was going to make, "A Gray State". Why would they do this? It is a different film, it is a documentary, to put this exact title is misleading and unacceptable, when in fact they attack his own personality and daily life. Disturbing is the fact that, whoever is behind this documentary had full access in his personal diaries, personal moments with his family, personal discussions with his wife or his kid. Even if this is the most useful part of this film, because we get to know more detail about how he worked and how he LOVED THEM DEEPLY, the content is not objectively put into the plot. They want to design throughout different stages of his life, the portrait of a crazy man. But that is it. They want it but they do not achieve it. This documentary has huge gaps, and from beginning until the middle has a steady pace, giving us sigh of the behind the scenes from his production of the film. We see how he thinks, how he wants to bring his movie to life. We see that he encourages people to know about the government of America, he speaks of how he thought of army and what made him change his mind, irreversably. David Crowley is honest. He admits he killed people, he admits he was in the battle field "defending" his country. He has seen the truth and wants to do something about it. He is BRAVE. Every man or woman that speaks in the film about him, speaks words of kindness, they say how perfectionist he was and how he would help others. We can understand a person, from the way he acts and the way he talks. He seem to be conscious about everything, he has understand how he should stand up against the injustice he has experienced. TRUTH coming out from simple people IS ALWAYS irritating for the ones that want to keep people sleeping and being numb. He speaks about how American government uses its soldiers, he speaks about the marcial law and how they want to pass it without anyone noticing it. He speaks about the huge distance between the elite and the society, the weak and the ones in power. He refers to a New World Order. It is no secret they killed them all. They gave us a photo of ALLAH AKBAR written in the wall, and a diary oddly put infront of the scene of murders and they're done with it. Again, the terror of the muslim, but what muslim is that, when both David and his wife where Christians? He had a huge desire to get this movie done. His wife and his daughter were his biggest supporters. Suddenly, when he announce that he will make this film, many people are getting interested, many people ask for this person to be one voice of hope in this dark present times. He is excited, he has his film crew, his wife helping him with everything, his friends believing in him. He makes public speach and shows a trailer of the film that he made without many money, so he can raise the amount of money he needs to make it happen. THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IS there, he has all the help to make it real feature film. THE TRAILER OF THE FILM IS EVERYWHERE, in every social network. People see it, speak about it, it goes viral. ........ Suddenly, something happens. David and his family isolate themselves from their friends, their families. The production stops slowly to proceed. They are staying together into their house and they seem to be worried about something. Again, they are together, working inside the house.

Ultimately I enjoyed this movie but as others have noted, the film maker does not spend much time on any other possible conclusion than the narrative you are left with. Two small bits with the keyboard jockey conspiracy guys is the only real glimpse into an alternate story as to what happened with this young family. I happen to agree with the probable answer that mental illness drove David to do the unthinkable but i would have preferred a bit more time having been spent on other possibilities. I am sure I will now go down the internet rabbit hole to find any "evidence" of a conspiracy as the film really did not explore that angle at all. My specualtion would be that the film maker was convinced, after investigating the story so deeply, that what he presents is the truth. I was just disappointed that Netflix eludes to the story being more of a conspiracy in the description.

I never heard of this film or of the filmaker in the documentary. I saw the title on Netflix and watched it one day after work. The documentary itself was good. The subject matter was interesting. It was no murder mystery. The mystery is why did it happen. The mystery is what heppened to this man and why did the wife go into the rabbit hole with him. I never understand murder suicides and to kill your child, and wife then yourself is unrelateable to me. Especially writing in your wifes blood. Like I said it was a good dicumentary.

I was gripped from the opening scenes. Not knowing the story, it unfolded like a mystery, thanks to a solid structure from a director in control. I don't wish to diminish the content, as really, this is a very disturbing and sad story, as told through the people closest to David, the young man at the center of A Gray State. He was clearly talented but did not realize that as he was creating his debut feature film, he was really documenting his own story, one, which unfortunately, we are now all to privy to. It's a shame that the young woman who shares his journey wasn't represented more by her family, but given the situation, you can understand why they probably didn't wish to participate. As a parent, it's absolutely heartbreaking. A truly tragic story, that didn't leave any questions for me, that it might do for others. The human mind is a fragile thing, especially after trauma. There is a high degree of responsibility, however, of governments to look after those whom it exposes to war, that should last long after duty is over.