Bullying: a great leap forward?! byWyn Evans The Boss and I recently watched “The Parts You Lose”, on Netflix. Set in a cold, snowy North Dakota, the film looks at events from the perspective of a young deaf boy, Danny. He lives out in the sticks with his mum, a younger sister, and a father who has little time for him. He attends a school for kids with disabilities, where he is bullied. One evening he comes across an injured and unconscious man. We learn that the man was a robber who had been injured following a shoot-out whilst holding-up a local bank. Danny loads the man onto a sled and drags him back to an empty barn where he tends to the man’s wounds and feeds him. As the man slowly recovers we gain an insight into the characters’ personalities. Danny’s father appears to resent his son’s deafness. He works away for extended periods, spends
Photo taken by Carmarthen Journal. 6 CARDIFF TIMES
a lot of time down the pub and is not averse to using his fists against his son. Danny’s mother fluently communicates with him using sign language; she also mediates her husband’s rough, volatile moods to protect her children. The injured bank-robber learns some basic sign language from Danny and they connect emotionally, the former advising Danny how to stand-up to his bullying class-mate and, through playing games of draughts together, shows Danny that winning requires some real effort and skill. Relax folks! Nothing I’ve written above will spoil the plot of the film for you, nor shall I write anything about how the plot pans out. It’s an atmospheric, understated little movie; well acted, beautifully shot, and insightful in the ways it deals with different forms of, and
