Man have people been bugging me to watch this movie lately. I keep getting suggestions from friends saying that I need to see this, and even though it's a made for Lifetime television movie (which is usually a sign of bad things) I kind of wanted to see this, too. Now don't get me wrong, I love "Mother May I Sleep With Danger" in all its campy goodness, and I can get behind the idea of watching a TV movie just for fun, but this one promised to be serious and even depressing, so it wasn't something I looked forward to. In the end, I was right. Sort of. The movie was serious and depressing, but it was also surprisingly worth watching.

"Prayers for Bobby" is about a young man from a strict religious background whose mother tries desperately to change him after she finds out that he's gay. When he rebels against her ideas and she refuses to accept him, he commits suicide. I know, right? The feel good movie of the year. That's what I thought too, and it's why I resisted watching this movie for so long even though so many people were eager for me to see it. I had a feeling it would piss me off and cause me to punch a hole in my door or something. For the record, it DID piss me off and I found myself screaming at the screen during one scene because I was so pissed. I actually had to get up and leave the room for awhile. Very few movies have that affect on me (actually, only two that I can name, "The Devil's Rejects" and "Full Metal Jacket") I have to give credit to a movie that can affect me that deeply.

At the heart, this woman is trying to save her son from what she believes will be his fate: burning in hell. I don't think people outside the cult of biblical literalism can understand how pervasive it is and how damaging that kind of teaching can be to someone who can't even imagine believing any differently. This struggle shows in the lives of the rest of Bobby's family as well, as they try to come to grips with how they feel about him. Everyone in the cast gives a solid performance here as well, lending even more emotional weight to the story.

About halfway through the movie, the big suicide scene happens, and here I'm thinking, "wait...what? Half of the movie is left. What's going to happen now?" That's when I realized that this movie was never so much about Bobby as it was about his mother and the rest of his family and what they have to do to pick up the pieces after he's gone. The family dynamic is something that I really struggle with. My mother kicked me out of the house when I was sixteen and said she never wanted to see me again. A few years ago, when I visited her for Christmas, a friend said this, and it's never left me. She said: "Your mom misses you. I don't know how much she acknowledges the part she played in you leaving, or if she ever will acknowledge it, but she misses you." That sums up one of the biggest themes in this movie: that families still care about each other, even when harsh words are said and schisms occur.

It dawned on me, watching this movie, that when a child commits suicide, there's never any chance for reconciliation (even the tiniest bit of reconciliation that I got to have) and as much as I wanted to scream at the mother in this movie (and as much as I actually DID scream at the image of her on my screen) my heart ached for her, watching her break down and seeing how much she missed her son and how she wished she could have him back. Cue the funeral dirge, right? I'm selling this as the most depressing movie of the year, when really it's not. The way Mary Griffith eventually manages to come to grips with what happened to her family is inspirational, and the movie ends on a hopeful note (with an added message to anyone who believes so strongly in the rabid fundamentalist view of homosexuality that they agree without even thinking how this view affects those around them). For all its exhausting emotional weight, the movie is worth a watch for the final scene alone.

It's not as depressing as I'm making it sound. This is one TV movie that's worth checking out, especially for anyone who's had any experience with biblical literalism and how it can wreak havoc in people's lives.