Educational Media Reviews Online

It’s unfortunate a film about ADHD is so disorganized and unfocused. At one point, a mother of a child with ADHD looks at the filmmakers on the other side of the camera and asks, perplexed, “What do you want to talk about?” Judging from the final product, we doubt the filmmakers had an answer for her.

ADHD Rush Hour attempts to look at the many topics surrounding ADHD, including diagnosis, treatment, medication, genetics, environment, education, and pharmaceutical companies. The documentary primarily interviews a young boy and his family in the United States and an older student and his mother in Italy. A large portion of the film is in Italian with English subtitles.

While a global view of ADHD is appreciated, the film’s statistics and discussion focuses almost exclusively on how ADHD is treated in the United States, with no explanation of why we are in Italy for half of the film. If you are new to the study and history of ADHD, it is difficult to grasp a concept (including medical and pharmaceutical terms) while reading subtitles and given no visual clues as to location. We are shown a yellow school bus in the United States . . . but the voiceover is in Italian.

There are over six “experts” who are consulted, but there is no indication on the screen what their name is or their credentials. One man proclaims that psychiatric diagnoses of ADHD are “fraudulent” and “any drug given on the basis of a fraudulent diagnosis can only be . . . called poisoning.” Is he a doctor? A member of CHADD - Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder? We are also taken inside the classroom of a summer program that specializes in children with ADHD. But we never find out where this school is or who’s running the program.

There are intriguing ideas that are brought up in the documentary but are not explored nearly enough. Some children are shown meditating and taking a karate class, but alternatives to medication are not discussed. The Italian family had to go to Switzerland to find affordable ADHD medication. In the U.S., most diagnoses of ADHD are made by teachers. But the filmmakers drop those issues in exchange for long, meaningless shots of kids playing or sitting around the house with a soundtrack of moody piano music.