Valentine RoadIn 2008, the small town of Oxnard, California was rocked when 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed 15-year-old classmate Larry King. His was motivated to do so after Larry, an LGBTQ student asked Brandon to be his valentine in front of his friends. A documentary about this terrible act should be cut-and-dry, right?

Well not in the way that VALENTINE ROAD frames it.

Director Marta Cunningham frames the story in such a way that we get the goods on both of these two young men. Larry is, of course, at the movie’s centre and in its proverbial heart. We get the story of a boy who had a rough time growing up, going through several foster homes through his too-brief time on earth. It was when he arrived at a group home that was nurturing that he began to get a grip on his own identity. Unfortunately, that identity – in all its beautiful and unashamed glory – didn’t agree with everyone at E.O. Green Junior High School. That he had to die for being who he was is tragic.

Cunningham takes great care to tell Brandon’s story too. They underline how he too came from a broken home, although in his case he at least had two parents to turn to throughout his adolescence. Unfortunately, those two parents made too many mistakes along the way, and Brandon became a product of his environment. By the time he was a teenager, Brandon began getting influenced by the large contingent of neo-Nazis in southern California, and was slowly moulded into a hateful person. There were still traces of the bright, kind, and loving boy in him, but they were slowly being painted over with coats of intolerance and ignorance. That he felt the need to kill in response to an advance of affection is equally tragic.

That is how VALENTINE ROAD is framed. We are exposed to both Brandon and Larry in equal measure. We meet teachers and guardians that surrounded both of these children, and see how heavily they have borne this burden. Larry’s friends and teachers are both inspired and saddened by their deep loss, while Brandon’s mother and brother are still shaken by how he was ever capable of such things. What hits them even harder is the fact that a change in California law makes it possible for Brandon to be tried as an adult. A case can be made that a 14-year-old that comes from such a screwed-up background doesn’t deserve to go to jail for 20 years, and VALENTINE ROAD provides more than one opportunity for the question to be raised.

So if this frustrating documentary finds balance between the killer and the victim, where is one supposed to vent their frustrations? I assure you – the film finds a culprit (a few of them actually). There are players in this tragic tale that will confound, enrage, and astonish. These are the people within the situation that should have more brains…people that are clouded by stubbornness…people misguided by misplaced passion. I dare not reveal exactly who these characters are, but I don’t think I have to. In the screening I attended, they left viewers audibly aghast.

As the chorus of Macklemore’s “Same Love” chimes out, and the lights begin to come up, one is left with a mix of feelings. One thinks about the need to teach tolerance to our children, and hope that it leads to enough of a groundswell that the adults around them learn it too. One thinks of the need to teach conflict resolution, so that the answer to the feeling of being jilted isn;t to automatically reach for a gun.

If our walk down VALENTINE ROAD can teach us these lessons, then perhaps these two boys won’t have lost their lives – both figuratively and literally – for nothing.

VALENTINE ROAD is playing once more, Saturday May 4th – Hart House Theatre at 8pm. (official website)