An anxious teenage girl is bullied on social media -- and struggles to fight back.


COMMENTS is used with permission from Danielle Baynes. Learn more at https://commentsfilm.com.


Maddie is an anxious young teenager who is typical of her age in many ways. Tethered to her phone, she posts on social media and interacts with her friends on the apps as well.

But one evening after school, Maddie begins getting hostile, mean comments from a cyber bully. Despite Maddie's attempts to mollify, ignore or fight back, the bully is relentless -- and no matter what she does or where she goes, she finds no escape.

Directed and written by Danielle Baynes, this short drama evokes the punishing, insidious way that young teenagers are affected by poisonous social media noise and bullying, using the uniquely elastic ability of cinema to capture both inner and outer experiences. Maddie may just be lying in her bed or sitting at a table looking at her phone on one level of reality. But internally, there's a battle for her well-being, self-esteem and peace of mind happening, with each blow sinking her deeper into an online vortex that's increasingly harder to climb out of.

Visually, the film uses a muted naturalism that speaks to Maddie's everyday, contemporary reality as she walks home, sits in her room and browses through her apps and socials. But when she begins getting cruel comments about her appearance online, the visuals shift to a more vivid, antiseptically stark mode, where Maddie is battered, beaten and tossed about. It's a big risk, but it works here, thanks to stellar craftsmanship and storytelling.

The film may be nearly wordless in spoken dialogue, but its narrative propulsion is tightly tethered to Maddie's emotional life. As a result, we get a visceral sense of just how deeply Maddie is affected by what she sees online, from reading the words of her tormentor to seeing other girls with more makeup and skin showing getting attention.

Actor Rachel Pengilly has only a few lines of dialogue in the film, but she has an innate expressiveness and sensitivity in her performance that captures the raw, increasingly painful emotions bubbling underneath the surface. As the bullying and harassment escalate, Maddie finds it harder to detach, even as her sense of self-esteem deteriorates.

Beyond its compassion and compelling storytelling, COMMENTS succeeds because it captures how a significant portion of a younger generation's emotional and social life exists primarily via smartphones, social media and texts. But it ends with a conversation between Maddie and her father in real life, reminding her -- and us -- that no one needs to be alone as they grapple with the aggression and attacks of bullying, which continues even when the notifications are silenced or the phone is put away. In the cloistered inner reality of online life, it's all too easy to believe we're alone and disconnected from love and support, but in real life, we don't have to be.