Real Talk Around Netflix’s All the Bright Places

This past week I was in Columbus, Ohio visiting Nationwide Kids Hospital. We were fully immersed in children’s mental health for less than 48 hours.

After any event, especially one as emotionally charged as this, I like to come home and decompress. To center myself and digest everything I learned.

But also to rest my body and brain. To give my anxiety a chance to process everything that occurred.

Colby and the kids know this about me. Whether it’s a family holiday or a 2-day event requiring airplane travel and crowds of people. 

I have to decompress.

Therefore, Saturday night as Colby and I settled into bed, we decided to watch a movie.

Choosing a movie is never an easy task, so we often start with what’s trending on Netflix. It at least gives us a place to begin.

We found two movies we thought might work for the evening, watched both trailers, and then discussed which one to choose.

I, hello my fellow enneagram 5 fact seekers, had to research a few things first. 

We had met Elle Fanning (Violet Markey) years ago and I already knew I enjoyed her acting, but didn’t know Justice Smith (Theodore Finch); although he looked familiar.

I looked him up, discovered other movies I knew him from, and we decided to go with this one: All the Bright Places.

In my short Google search, I did read that the movie talked about mental health issues. Having just returned from Nationwide Kid’s and discussing this very topic, the movie sounded timely.

All the Bright Places

I honestly had no idea how timely it was. Nor did I realize the movie had just released days before.

As I watched, I was not only captivated by the story, but completely tuned into the ways they were bringing mental illness into the conversation.

For example, after watching just one time, I caught mention of the following mental health topics:

• Grief
• Childhood trauma
• Emotional abuse
• Physical abuse
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Alcoholism
• Eating Disorders
• Anger
• Bullying
• Stress
• Cutting 
• Suicide

Most of which, as you can see from the links above, I’ve previously touched on in some form.

Why? Because I have personally experienced them or someone close to me has.

And honestly, there are possibly more I may have missed in just the first showing.

This movie should come with a *trigger warning.*

Watching with Colby, I kept turning to him and explaining what I had learned during the event about mental health. I wanted to share the knowledge I had gained and to help him better understand the movie as I was seeing it.

You see, Colby’s “lucky.” He doesn’t have anxiety or depression like I do. In fact, that makes me lucky. 

I have someone by my side who listens to my concerns, supports me for better or worse, and helps me through the sink holes and grand canyons. 

He is my rock. And I firmly believe we all need a rock. 

Sometimes though, as we see with Finch in the movie, even a rock isn’t enough. *no spoilers here*

If nothing else, we can all choose to be kind to people around us. We have no idea where they’ve come from, what they’re going through, or where they’re headed. 

Life is hard enough. Let’s just try to get through this thing… together. 

Mental Health Talk

In the coming days, weeks, months, I hope to share more about mental health because I believe it’s a topic worth talking about. If I can open up a conversation for one person, help one person, then it’s worth it.

Whether you’re facing one of the issues mentioned above, one I’ve already talked about, or something I’m still discovering, I simply want to give you a safe space to tell someone. 

You can email me anytime here. Or send me a PM on Instagram. Let’s connect!

Together we can start a conversation and bring others along.

PLUS!

Netflix has even set up a microsite to help kick start the conversation. Additionally, they have a host of resources available if you or someone you know are in crisis or are looking for information.

Find these resources and organizations at allthebrightplacesfilm.info

By the way, this is in no way a sponsored post. After attending the event and watching the movie, I simply felt strongly about sharing my thoughts on it.