Errh, so no [spoilers]

This was a miss for me, big time. I was really hoping for once the movie would indeed be about the parent grieving a VICTIM of a college shooting like this, but no, yet again, the son is the killer. When Selena Gomez said the "he was always so sweet to me" thing I thought, oh no, please don't let Josh be the shooter. It was just too predictable/boring/whatever. Attempting to be an edgy shocker but really just annoying, to be honest. We have plenty of movies of this subject that deal with the shooter, the shooter's motivations/incentive, the parents of a mass shooting teen, etc. It really would have been nice, for once, to have a movie dealing with a parent grieving such a sudden, atrocious kind of death for their child. I'm not saying all shooters are monsters or whatever, but really, truly, I was hoping it would be something refreshing and unique with this topic for once. but nope, went the predictable route. Let's focus on the shooter (and/or his family) for the 190903th time and not the victims and the victims' families and whatever they might be going through

I agree with some other comments too that it wasn't believable that this kid was a shooter. With his nice little acoustics songs and whatnot. People who end up doing this kind of act are usually deeply troubled, angry, despairing, resentful ... just...yeah no. It wasn't well done. I guess we're supposed to buy he just "was sick" or whatever, but again, usually with these, when you dig a little beneath the surface, there are a lot of red flags and a brewing volcano that went off. I guess there could have been in this story too and they just didn't show it but...sorry, really, the parents seemed way too normal, too. Not that it's always the parents' faults... but unless just severely mentally ill (which he did not seem to be...) there's got to have been some weird dynamics growing up, too. People commit these acts from an extremely dark place that usually has been brewing a long time, from childhood or younger adolescence, too. And why the hell would he be writing mid-song before committing his act? These things take a lot of planning.

I might be "biased" or a little dead inside or something, because I was at a university with a mass shooting so I know more "firsthand" what it's like, what the shooter is like, all that. It took him a while to plan his act, he actually stopped going to classes a few weeks before, etc. So having this guy just strummin his guitar like it aint no thang a few minutes before going to class to commit the deed...not realistic at all. And (in real life) people around the person knew he was a really dark, unstable person...etc etc. The movie character just lightly snapping at that guy who knocked on the door and saying "grr I hate this place" is no different than how 90% of college students are lol and they don't go on to do shootings. And come on, he had a girlfriend, too! Again, often times the real shooters seem frustrated or disgruntled in that area too (socially, romantically, a lot of it). They wouldn't even be okay enough to hold down a normal relationship, or an off and on nice little thing like he seemed to have with Selena in the movie. Once again. It takes an extremely troubled, unhappy, angry, unstable person to do that. The movie character did not seem to be any of those things from the three seconds we saw, and he had protective factors like the girlfriend, a seeming nice relationship with the dad, musical talent... etc...

So with this movie, none of it was believable. They went for the "twist" just to be edgy I think but it wasn't even remotely true to life, I don't think. Okay sure I can get the dad wanting to hide and wanting to connect with his son, that all makes sense in a way but not the rest of it.

I have wondered what it might be like for a SIBLING of a shooter, but, I'm kind of bored with the parents-of movies now.

And this movie seemed oddly light-hearted, too many long scenes of the band playing songs...it just rang false to me. Sorry, I like William H Macy too. It just seemed too dare I say emotionally manipulative and false.