Educational Media Reviews Online

Split UP: The Teen Years is a powerful sequel to SPLIT, a short film about the effects of divorce on young children. This documentary film checks in with the kids from SPLIT ten years later to see how things have changed since their first interviews. Much like the first film, Split UP is told entirely from the perspective of the kids. Split UP starts by providing context via the initial interviews with the kids and goes on to contrast them with their contemporary interviews. This allows Split UP to work as a stand-alone film and as a sequel.

In contrast with their younger selves, the interviewees are now acutely aware of the emotional impact their parents’ behavior during and after the divorce has had on them. The interviewees are articulate and expressive, detailing how they've learned to navigate their parents' divorces. Their experiences are as varied as their respective situations, but all offer excellent insight into the challenges they have experienced while being raised by parents who are no longer married to one another. The interviewees offer insightful, pointed, and advice for children of divorce. It is these individual experiences which give them film depth and make it special.

A stand out segment involves the kids sharing details that come along with growing up in two different homes. They discuss issues with living in two homes that might not be obvious: living in different types of neighborhoods, different food choices in each home, different expectations from each parent, and the stress of carrying necessary items back and forth between two homes. What happens when you leave important items behind at one home? For one interviewee, it means a bus ride in the rain at night to go back and retrieve the item left at one parent’s house. And of course, what happens to the kids when their divorced parents don’t get along? The impact on kids when they are forced to hear the terrible things their parents say about one another is staggering and makes it very clear that the heaviest burden in a divorce is often carried by the children.

There are bright spots in the film that give the viewer insight into how the interviewees have healed and moved forward since the first film. The growth and maturity they found in their journeys seem to impart a gift for finding the positive. They discuss recognizing the beauty in blended families and the kindness of people who stepped in to help when a parent was not available. Some interviewees state that they now recognize the difficulties their parents faced during the divorce. One young man shares that based on what he has experienced, he wants to do better when he becomes a father. That hopeful tone is exactly the ending this powerful film needed.

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