At a crucial point in the 1946 classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey, in a moment of despair, decides to end it all by throwing himself off a bridge. At the last moment, he’s saved by his guardian angel, Clarence, and, after some twists and turns, he realizes that suicide would have been a mistake: everyone in the town passes through his house, giving him money and telling him how much he means to them. He then receives a note from Clarence: “No man is a failure who has friends.” I have to admit that this is one of my favourite films. I also have to admit that there was always an unsettling question in the back of my mind at the end. to say nothing about the possibility of guardian angels, I always wondered, what if a person doesn’t have that many friends? What if he didn’t have any friends at all? What then?
In Kaia Hathaway’s short film, You Are Not Alone, we get a different and more realistic take on the issue of suicide prevention. Lillian, a girl who may be non-binary, and who is perhaps is about grade 10, is struggling. She’s played by Ella Massaglia who does a truly outstanding job. She, along with Hathaway does a great job of making us feel just how hopeless Lillian feels. Over and over again, we watch Lillian wake up to her alarm, put on her shoes and goes to school. But she may as well be marching into a slaughterhouse. She’s alone. Anyone who’s ever passed days on end without talking to anyone at school will recognize the absolute despondency Lillian must feel. Meanwhile, on the wall near her locker is a poster of someone doing some exciting outdoor activity with the slogan, “Wake up, Hustle, Repeat.” This is sadistically ironic for Lillian who seems to herself to be living a pointless existence. On top of that, she’s failing in math, her parents are too busy fighting with each other to notice what’s going on with their daughter. And she gets a constant stream of hateful bullying messages on her phone and locker. Oh, and this is all happening during the Covid-19 pandemic, so everyone’s wearing masks and staying away from each other.
When she can’t seem to take it anymore, Lillian heads to a bridge where it looks like she’s thinking about throwing herself into the water. But, just as George Bailey was saved by Clarence, so Lillian is saved by an unexpected text message from Taran, one of her classmates. They end up talking and from that moment on, Lillian’s life is transformed. She engaged at school, she speaks to a guidance councilor or some other support staff, she goes from being immersed in blackness on the bridge to being bathed in sunlight on green fields. And all of this is done without anything but text messages for dialogue. It’s an impressive film and I think it does a good job of showing just how important even a little bit of contact can be for someone who’s feeling so isolated. Is it unrealistic to think that one text can so transform a person’s life? I really don’t think so.
You Are Not Alone is meant to assure the Lillians that they are not alone and that if they just hold on, things will get better. That’s an important message. But still, her fate lay in the hands of Taran in the film. Without his concerned texts, she may, like George Bailey, have thrown herself off a bridge. I think this film may actually be better at getting the Taran’s of the world to reach out to those who seem to need it. After all, what do we tell the Lillian who’s at the end of their rope who doesn’t get a friendly text? What if Taran hadn’t been around? Taran is in fact Lillian’s guardian angel in this film because we can’t be sure Lillian would have survived without him. You may only need one friend to pull you through. But what if you don’t even have one friend? In this day and age, sadly, this isn’t just a hypothetical question.
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