Educational Media Reviews Online

Unlikely Friends is an unpretentious, straightforward film that reflects upon the importance of forgiveness in a context most ordinary citizens would find difficult to fathom. In an hour, director Leslie Neale manages to capture the how the act of forgiveness is integral to healing from pain as expressed by the relationships survivors of violent crimes develop with the perpetrators who committed them.

The film mainly chronicles the journey of four lives forever changed by violent crimes: one as a survivor of a shooting and others as parents of a murdered child. Each survivor recounts details of the crime, their initial emotions towards the perpetrator, and ultimately how they overcame their grief by forgiving and engaging with the perpetrator or the prison population in general. The director briefly breaks from this narration pattern by presenting a different viewpoint of healing and justice by interviewing a victim’s advocacy organization. The varied perspectives and journeys of each survivor enable the viewer to understand how one must deal with their anger and the social taboo of engaging with perpetrators in prison through self-awareness, compassion and love. When discussing the bureaucracy of correctional institutions and prison sentences, survivors question the overall effectiveness of the United States incarceration system, its dehumanization of inmates and lack of support in helping victims and survivors heal.

Unlikely Friends is recommended for criminal justice, religion and sociology students. The film would inspire debate and discussion on capital punishment, the prison industrial complex, spirituality, mental health and other related social issues.