Boy Interrupted (2009) - full transcript

HART [CHUCKLES]:
No, I can't shoot this.

This is private.
This is private.

This is not important
to show. Okay.

Clear the way.

Here we go.

[♪♪]

Good morning, world.

Good morning, Evan.

Mikey. Get a shot of Mike.

Good morning, Mike.

Good morning, D.



DANA: Good morning.

EVAN: Good morning, Michael.

HART:
So, Evan, where do you want me
to stand for the shot?

EVAN: Uh...

Where do you want me to stand?

Right here? EVAN: A little back.

Take another step back? Yeah.

Big step back. Oh, no.

Oh, I'm so mad now.

Oh.

EVAN: We'll see you later.

[HUMMING]

Whoo...

Look at the sky.



EVAN:
Okay, I'll interview you,
Mom.

Okay, hi.

How do you like the trip?

I love this trip,

but I don't love it more
than you.

Are you sure? Yeah.

Paradise. I like paradise.

There's Daddy.

EVAN: Dad, Yeah.

What do you think
about the trip?

Well, you know,

I'm really glad you asked me
that question, Evan.

Since I like this trip so much,

you know what it makes me do?

What?

It makes me want to jump
right over you.

Whoa...

DANA: Very impressive.
EVAN: Yes.

So now we're going
to get the house.

There's Michael's room.

And we're getting closer
to Michael,

the sleeping baby.

How do you like
the trip, Michael?

So now you have to meet

the cameraman.

Am I good or am I bad?

We'll have that in...

5.5 seconds.

[♪♪]

[SAW BUZZING]

[PROJECTOR CLICKING]

I was at my, uh...

In my room in my boarding
school when my, uh...

My dad called me

and told that Evan
had jumped out of the...

Out of his window.

[♪♪]

[STARTS ENGINE]

It was sort of
the third week of school,

I think, that he...

He chose to take his life.

I went into my mother's room

and...

I realized the sentence that
had to come out of my mouth.

I had to communicate to them

why I was coming in there

and why I was reaching out
for them and...

[SNIFFLES]

You know, I had to say,

"Evan's killed himself."

One of the things
that you do, I think...

Or at least that I do
unconsciously,

to avoid things that are
really too painful to...

confront.

...is just black them out.

How... How can
you understand doing that?

It doesn't seem possible.

What on Earth has happened
to make your son so miserable

that he doesn't want
to be there anymore.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

DANA:
We'll never know
what was in Evan's head

the night he killed himself.

The mystery will always be

what his thought was
when he was on the ledge.

You know,
as he put one foot over the...

The window,

and made that decision.

Maybe he started to realize that

his mental illness
was so powerful

and that he couldn't win.

MAN:
"He that raised up Jesus
from the dead

"will also give life
to our mortal bodies,

"in the sure and certain hope

"of the resurrection
to eternal life

"through our Lord Jesus Christ,

"we commend to almighty God
our brother Evan,

"and we commit his body
to the ground.

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,

dust to dust."

Amen.

GROUP: Amen.

DANA: How's it possible

that I found myself
at his funeral

holding my baby
for the last time?

[♪♪] [PROJECTOR CLICKING]

The day Evan was born

was the happiest day of my life.

It's indescribable.

It-it was indescribable
happiness

to finally see him,
because when you're pregnant

you start to have
a relationship with the baby

and it's, like,
moving around and...

You know, who are you?
Knock-knock.

Who's there?

And then he comes out and, uh,

Evan was particularly pretty.

I just fell in love
with him right away.

[♪♪]

HART:
Well, I actually filmed
Evan getting born

and I was very excited.

As I recall, I gave
the camera to the doctor

and he did a shot also.

DANA:
I was 26 when Evan was born.

Hart was 42,
he already had a son

from a previous relationship.

But Evan was my first.

Hart and I are filmmakers

and at that time Hart was
shooting away a lot

and he was gone
a lot of the time.

So Evan and I ended up
being alone together.

He was young, I was young.

We were like these two
little creatures,

trying to help each other out
a little bit.

[LAUGHING]

Yes.

Yes.

What's this?

HART: Okay, we...

We're gonna have
an interview with the mom.

So, Mom...

what do you think
about your kid?

Kid?

Oh, yeah, this thing.

Well, think that...
I think that it's really

just the most special thing,

to give him big kisses.

[BLOWS RASPBERRY]

Really, I think
that's the best part

of it all.

NICHOLAS:
I remember the first time
I met Evan.

Dana had come home
from the hospital.

I think I had actually
been away with my mother

while he was born
and my dad came

and picked
me up at my apartment.

I was living on Mercer Street
with my mom.

And he said,

"We're going to meet
your little brother."

There's this photograph
of me, um,

taken during my first
encounter with Evan

and my expression
sort of sums it all up.

It's, "what the fuck is this?"

[CHUCKLES]
Sort of holding this baby
in my arms thinking,

you know,
"where did he come from?"

So... So what...?
Who's your brother?

Nicky.

Do you like your brother Nicky?

[MUMBLES]

So how old are you, Evan?

Um... I old...

I older.

You're older? How old?

Um, really old.

Look at Daddy. Look at Daddy's
camera when you say that.

I'm really old.

You're really old? How old?

Like, big old.

Are you big? Yeah.

How big are you?

T...

Real big?

Big as a dinosaur?

I remember his first

word that he used over
and over and over again,

was, "no."

And we used to joke it was "no"

because he heard
the word "no" so much

because as soon
as he was walking around

he would get into everything.

[GROUP LAUGHS]

GROUP: Aw...

WOMAN: Oh, how cute.

[LAUGHTER]

DANA: Evan, no, no. No.

Be gentle. [WHINES]

Oh, come on. "Please let me
punch him in the nose."

[LAUGHTER]

NICHOLAS:
I think I understood
from an early time

that he was a challenging kid.

[CRYING]

MAN: Russell, Russell.

[♪♪]

Getting dressed in the morning
I knew was a challenge

if he didn't have
the right outfit,

you know, you weren't gonna
be leaving the house

for a very long time.

[♪♪]

One summer we were in Nantucket

and we were trying to leave
the beach at the end of the day

and I think it took us
45 minutes

to get the towels in the baskets

and start walking home
from the beach

because Evan wanted
the towels to be folded

a certain way,

and put in the basket
a certain way

and if they weren't

he would dump them out
in the sand

and he'd say,
"Start over, start over."

That was his big phrase.

HART: He was a perfectionist.

And this persisted
throughout his whole life.

If he wasn't absolutely
the best at something,

then he would get frustrated.

And discipline was
pretty much impossible.

I mean, the way
we used to handle it

is we'd say, okay,
so you have time-out

and put him in his room.

Well, you put him
in his room for time-out

it's like, you know,
Keith Moon in a hotel room.

You know,
the TV set's out the window,

bookshelves are, you know...

Crashing over.

And you come in and it's,
like, totally destroyed

and do you think he's at all...?

Uh, you know,
feels bad about it?

No, it's like,
"Okay, so put me in prison.

I wanna go to prison."

NICHOLAS:
There is no doubt
in my mind

that he had
psychological issues.

I guess the best way
I can describe it is

he lacked emotional
shock absorbers.

And because of that

would react to situations

that you and I would see
as insignificant

in a really, really big way.

[♪♪]

DANA:
Well, really,
it was almost like

there were two Evans.

He would be, on the one hand,
tantrumming

and being completely
impossible to reach.

On the other hand,
being this wonderful,

vibrant, vivacious kid.

[♪♪]

EVAN: Hello.

CHRIS: Hello. What's your name?

My name is RoboCop,
what's yours?

Nobody.

Well, I'm pullin' you over,

Nobody, 'cause you're speeding.

Ease up on the throttle.

Okay, good night.

Have sweet dreams, goodbye.

[BOTH LAUGH]

DANA:
I mean, he was so much fun
to be around

and when Michael was born

Evan was thrilled.

He finally had a playmate.

They were roommates

and he adored Michael.

Hi, it's me Evan.

That's my little brother
and that's my mom.

HART: And what are they doing?

My mom's talk...

Trying to talk to somebody,

Michael's just sucking
on his pacifier.

I couldn't take 'em out

'cause that was
too hard to open.

DANA:
Okay, what's...?
What's Michael saying?

EVAN: He's saying that...

"I wanna get that dog." [WHINES]

That's what he's saying.

Okay, Evan, you wanna film now?

Yeah. Okay.

[EVAN GRUNTS]

EVAN: And that's...

formula.

There's a green shirt,

guess who, it's Daddy.

Four eyes.

Oh, there's inside the toilet.

And there's under the bed,
let's go see.

We see red gloves,

we see some socks.

Ready? HART: I'm ready.

Okay, action.

HART:
He learned how to read
very quickly,

he loved books.

He loved talking
about what he was reading.

And he was a great companion,
you know,

when you were doin' something.

Going on a trip...

He was a guy who was,

you know, good for an adventure.

MAN: All right, Hart.

DANA: Hart. EVAN: And Evan.

I know, it's tough. And Evan.

And Evan.

DANA: He's a big one.

Beautiful.

Let's see
the triumphant fishermen.

[CHEERING] Yes, Nicholas.

Yay!

What do you think, Evan?

What do you think?

Goody!

My camera.

HART: Aw, poor baby boy.

He needs to go
to Mommy for help.

DANA:
Evan was incredibly
affectionate,

he was very physical.

Very cuddly. Always cuddling up.

Ev, are you a little baby
still in Mommy's tummy?

Uh-huh. You haven't even
been born yet, have you?

You have to take
that intense sweetness

and l... You know, sensitivity,

and just completely upended

into the darkest, scariest...

Uh...

Scary, scary.
That's all I can say.

Scary person, scary soul.

The darkest of souls.

[♪♪] [APPLAUSE]

When Evan was in kindergarten

I got a call
from the after-school teacher.

She was really concerned

about him talking about suicide.

KAREN: I met Evan when he was 5,

and he came to our program...
Performing arts school.

And, um,

he was probably the cutest kid
I've ever seen.

[APPLAUSE]

You try not to have favorites

but sometimes it just happens

and he happened to be
all the teachers' favorite.

He was just one of the most
loving, creative kids,

I've ever met.

Very righteous

and everything had to be fair.

And if someone was giving
anyone a hard time

he would be the first one
to break it up

and say, "Do you think
that was fair?

It wasn't fair."

[♪♪]

But when he was 5
and he was in the younger group

he was obsessed with dying.

You know, jumping out the window

and saying, "I'll kill myself."

And he said
a relative had done that.

Every day in group,
he would bring that up.

And he would say,
"I wanna jump out the window."

He'd say, "I don't care
if I die. I don't care."

And I said, "Well,
what about me?"

And he said,
"Well, I'd feel bad for you

"and my parents,
but I wouldn't mind

'cause I won't feel anything."

And he would sit in my lap

and have his arm,
you know, around me

and he would talk about it,
he said,

"No, I would...
I would jump out."

You know, like... I'm like, wh...?

You know, without being upset,
without...

You know, just being loving
and affectionate and...

And I said, "Evan,
that's just weird talk."

All right? You know, come on.

That's... That's just weird.

I've seen depressed kids

and I've seen,
you know, hyper kids.

But not kids who talk about...

you know, dying.

He was just curious about death.

And even obsessed with it.

DANA:
The thing about Evan's
obsession with death

was that it was
so matter-of-fact.

A lot of times
it was just casual.

EVAN: Um, we're in Hawaii.

We were just snorkeling, I saw...

Uh, we saw an eel,

and now we're gonna go
look at some whales.

Maybe we can see
Moby Dick's son.

Like, I remember

one time in-in Hawaii...

We're just there snorkeling
or something

and he says something like,
"By the way, I've got a rifle."

Don't say this at home,

kids.

HART: So what?

I got a rifle.

You got a rifle? Yeah.

What do you need a rifle for?

To shoot you.

And you just go, "what?"

Like, what do you mean to sh...?

I mean, that's not really funny.

It's not really expressed in a...

In a way that seems
attention-getting.

It seems like,

"Yeah. This is what
I think about."

"1997, Evan Perry.

"Perfectionistic, obsessive.

Doesn't like to have things..."

I stopped writing there.

"Good athlete, popular...

DANA:
When he was 5 we did start
seeing a psychiatrist.

"Doing well in school.

Last year fighting, etc."

And very early on,

he diagnosed depression

in Evan and put him on Prozac.

We talked about Prozac,

September 25th, '97.

That was the heyday of where

people were
just really discovering

depression in children.

You know, before...
I don't know when.

When I started out training,

people didn't really think
children had depression.

It was just thought,

children don't get
depressed. Period.

I remember
when you prescribed Prozac

I was pretty surprised

because I'd never heard of that.

That was, like,
a really big thing.

"Positive, strong family history

of depression on both sides."

Should I say this part?
Or skip this?

"Parental uncle

committed suicide, age 21."

Your brother, yeah.

"Talks about death and murder."

He was just scary.
I don't know what to say.

He had already made
a suicide attempt.

DANA: Which one? "Ran to window

and threatened to jump
in front of parents," I wrote.

"Defiant, rebellious,
banged head.

"Threatened to kill
parents and brother.

I want cancer."

Well, he was such a baby,
you know, in the beginning.

He had such a baby face.

I mean, such a kind of...

Kind of, pink,
kind of, baby kid.

And then it was this-that...

Kind of, visual contrast
between the...

You know, the demons inside him
and that, kind of, sweet look.

[♪♪]

DANA: At one point,

I'd say, Evan was about...

Maybe 7 or 8.

He and I were home
and once again

he started to talk
about wanting to kill himself.

A lot of times he would
tell me specifically

what he was gonna do.

He was gonna jump
out the window,

he was gonna jump
off a building,

he was gonna cut himself.

Or in this particular occasion,

he was gonna hang himself.

He took this pillow thing

with a strap on it

and climbed up on his bunk bed,

then he affixed it up there.

And then he put it
around his neck

and he showed me how he was
gonna jump off the bunk bed.

He's gonna show Mom
how he's gonna hang himself,

right in front of her.

And I didn't let him.

But I'm tired of trying
to explain to people

what I'm hearing at home

and I'm just gonna record this.

I always felt so guilty
about taking those pictures,

but I was so tired
of explaining to people

my son wants to kill himself.

I just needed some kind
of proof that, um...

That this is really happening.

Because it was
so impossible to believe.

Oh, God.

This is when
he tried to hang himself?

DANA: Yeah.

You know, there was a, uh...

idea that children
could not be suicidal

because they didn't understand
that death was, um,

irreversible.

Um...

I never really felt
like I knew Evan very well.

Um, he was the scariest kid
I ever saw in my life.

I'd never seen who'd been this...

Was this intent on, uh, death.

[♪♪]

It felt to me always
like there was

a mask or something there.

And I remember that look
going over him.

That unreachable look.

DANA:
When Evan went through
a mood swing

his whole body changed.

His face changed,
his physical attitude changed.

His ability
to communicate changed.

And you literally saw it
in his face.

He became unreachable.

Hart and I started
to call it the fugue state.

You'd sort of go like this:

The physical change would be

like a slackening of his face.

It just wasn't engaged.

Something receded.

And what you had was
this kind of thing:

This facade.

MAN:
Some whales are real curious,
they come right up to the boat.

Some whales turn the other cheek
and leave, essentially.

DANA:
There was a tone of voice
that went along with it too.

A very flat tone of voice.

[GROUP GASPING]

WOMAN:
They look like orcas to me.

HART: Where'd you see the whale?

I saw it over there
and over there.

Pretty exciting seeing

the size of the whale,
wasn't it?

DANA: Yeah, it was cool.

He could be very sullen.

HART:

I... What do you mean?

Yeah, I am.

Five. HART: Five?

This is the sixth.

So this is pretty exciting...

He definitely acted
like a teenager

at a very young age.

You hungry?

Yeah.

Yeah, I want
a peanut butter sandwich.

There's my goddamn control.

HART: What'd you say?

God. No, that's not nice.

HART:
He seemed to have skipped
being a kid

and gone immediately
to being a adolescent.

HART:
How was
the football game yesterday?

EVAN:

DANA:
That you expect
from your 15-year-old.

You know,
"You're not the boss of me.

Come on, give me the car keys."

"Where you goin'?" "Out."

"What'd you do in school?"
"Nothin'."

I mean, that seems normal.

In a 7-year-old
it doesn't seem normal.

And he was very teenage it was...

Along with that though,
he was also very sophisticated.

[GUITAR PLAYING]

EVAN [SINGING]:

DANA:
He did not have
a Britney Spears phase

he did not have
a Backstreet Boys phase,

he went straight to Dylan,
Neil Young, Nirvana.

And he wrote a lot of songs.

His lyrics touched on things
that you can't imagine

a kid that young
would even think about.

♪ You would think it's ♪

♪ Odd for me ♪

♪ If I could be ♪

♪ Cuttin' myself On the neck ♪

♪ Fittin' you With my knife ♪

♪ Sayin' you're gonna
Die tonight ♪

DANA: Stop!

♪ Well, that's because ♪

♪ I'm depressed Nothing less ♪

♪ Curious, furious ♪

♪ So somebody kill me please ♪

♪ I'm standin' on my knees ♪

[MIKEY SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]

♪ Somebody kill me please ♪

♪ Pretty, pretty please ♪

♪ I'm standin' on my knees ♪

It's because I'm depressed.

[♪♪]

Okay, that's it.

NICHOLAS:
When he was maybe 8 or 9
he kept a journal

and I saw it and took it out

and started reading it.

And there are these poems in it

essentially saying,

"I'm prepared for death.

I'm not afraid of death."

These really deep poems.

And I was

probably 15-16

and going through
my moody phase.

And I remember thinking, "Wow.

These are thoughts
I'm having right now."

I felt there was something
really powerful

going on in his mind,

that he had a sensitivity,

a maturity that was
way beyond his years.

KAREN:
There's one play
that Evan wrote

and his character was

a depressed kid who just saw
the negativity in everything.

Hey, kid. Yeah?

It's not raining anymore.

Just give it some t...

Just give it some time,
it'll start up again.

When he was 10 he said,

"Let's do a play
about someone dying...

A boy dying."

I said, "Well,

what kind of story is that?"

He said, "What? It's a story
about a kid dying."

And all his friends
and they miss him.

[SOBBING]
How am I supposed to live
without you?

You were my big brother.

Who's gonna take care of me?

Walk me to school?

Calm me down when I'm upset?

Please, don't leave me.

We'll be there for you.

It will be okay.

I'll walk you to school.

I can't leave him!

Evan came up with a story

that didn't make any sense.

Just, someone died.

And, you know, that they cry.

You said you would
always be there for me.

Well, I need you

more than I ever have right now.

I think he wanted the play

to be about the boy dying,

which obviously was
his character,

and to be able to see it
in a play

that everybody loves him.

I know that.
When you leave, it's like,

that's when everyone
gets together

and they miss you
and they honor you.

He will always be with us.

You don't have to
look here, or in heaven.

Look in your heart
and he'll be there.

[ERIC CLAPTON'S "TEARS IN
HEAVEN" PLAYING]

So we decided to do the show

and that's when, um...

you know, Evan attempted...

Or came close

to attempting suicide at PS-11.

[♪♪]

DANA: The fall semester of 2000,

when Evan was in fifth grade

he communicated

to the principal of his school

that he felt suicidal.

We get a letter and of course...

You know, it says, "just
a psychological evaluation."

Well, I'm already in therapy.

I'm already seeing
a psychiatrist.

He was already on meds.
I don't know...

You know,
I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

And three weeks later,

he made an attempt at school.

I got a call at my office.

"This is Mr. Delmonico

from PS-11
and this is about Evan."

He said,
"It's-it's very serious.

Um, you need to get here."

And I'm like, "You have to
tell me what's going on."

He said, "He's up on the roof
of his school."

PS-11, it's probably

six stories.

And he took a chunk of pavement

about the size of a hamburger

and threw it down
onto the playground

where the other kids were.

One of the teachers
went out on the roof

and there was Evan,
perched on a ledge.

And Evan told him
that he wanted to kill himself,

that he was gonna jump.

The teacher told him
that life was worth living

and what was good about Evan,

and that he was loved.

And eventually Evan
came down on his own.

By the time I got there,

he had been brought down
into the principal's office

and we were there
in the principal's office

and we decided to go straight

from there to an emergency room.

[SIREN WAILS]

One of the residents asked him,

"Do you know what it's like
to be dead?"

He says, "Yeah,
everybody gathers around

and talks about
how great you were."

HART: And for me it was like,

this is my worst fear.

He is like my brother.

[PROJECTOR CLICKING]

My younger brother Scott
committed suicide

by asphyxiating himself
in a car.

Because of my experience
with my brother

I wasn't going to fool around.

We had Evan
involuntarily committed

to a mental institution.

Uh, 'cause we were...

very, very concerned
about his suicide attempt.

We took it very seriously.

The place he went
was called Four Winds.

It's outside of New York,

and it's a lock-up
psychiatric facility.

SUZANNE: Evan was brought in

by ambulance after having
an incident at school.

Um, he was brought to
the Deerfield Unit

which is the unit
I was working on at the time.

Which is for kids 8 to 12.

And immediately assessed
and evaluated.

We were able to establish

a, uh... A pattern.

And saw that he definitely,

uh, met the criteria
for bipolar disorder.

[PROJECTOR CLICKING]

You know, known historically
as manic-depression.

This is a chemical imbalance,

a chemical illness in the brain.

Some kids have more of
a propensity towards depression

and some kids have more of
a propensity towards mania.

I think in Evan's case,

it was definitely
more depression.

Bipolar depression
is definitely more severe

than just depression.

That's why suicide attempts
are more common

in kids with bipolar depression.

And that's why it's scarier.

'Cause you don't know
how far he'll take it.

You know, you don't know
if he actually would

have jumped off that ledge
at school.

You know,
he had a tendency to blame

other people or other situations

instead of being able to say,
"Okay, yeah, I get it.

"I did something
I probably shouldn't have done,

it scared a lot of people
and that's why I'm here."

He just sort of said,

"All I wanted
was someone to listen."

And he just couldn't understand

that his behaviors
and the measure that he took

were scary to people.

He didn't think that if he went
and stood on the, uh...

The roof of the school,
that anything would happen.

So when he ended up
in a hospital

where it's lock down
and they watch you every second

and you're not allowed
to do anything

unless it's part of the schedule

and there are these
other damaged kids

and your parents can only visit
once in a while.

He just broke down. [♪♪]

I mean, he just fell apart.
He fell apart.

SUZANNE:
He was destroying property
on the unit.

He was very, very angry.

At one point I remember
he drew all over his walls

in his room and we had to
have him clean his walls.

He also was tantrumming a lot,
he was angry a lot.

He was banging his head
and his arms up against a wall.

When he was in the throes
of a manic episode

or a depressive episode,

you know, you couldn't reason.

And you can't reason
with a kid who's bipolar.

HART:
Visiting Evan at Four Winds

was agonizing.

Here is a kid

who was in a lock-up
psychiatric facility

for seriously mentally ill kids.

And coming to terms
with your kid

who seemed to have
behavioral issues

but he could've just, you know...

Be like an adolescent,

that this is something
he'd go through.

Because he had so many really,

you know, charming,
bright qualities.

Four Winds was, uh,

a real body punch.

Evan was given a variety
of medications.

Depakote was one of them.

Uh, he seemed really doped up.

And then they suggested

that he try lithium.

SUZANNE:
Lithium is a mood stabilizer

and it is used to level off

the serotonin in the brain

as opposed to having
the highs and lows

you kind of even off
the chemistry.

DANA:
He really did start
to respond to lithium.

I mean, it was really,
pretty remarkable.

But he was still, you know,
profoundly ill.

So then the question
became like:

Well, what do we do after this?

[BIRDS CAWING]

HART:
PS-11 would not take him back

and there was no place
for him to go.

Uh, except for this
very expensive alternative

which turned out to,
I think, have saved his life

for a number of years.

DANA:
Suzanne Hanna who was
his therapist

recommended this place
called Wellspring

which was what they call
Milieu Therapy.

Everything's an opportunity

to learn how to live
in the group.

From doing the dishes,
making meals,

to taking care of animals,

to taking care
of younger children,

to chores and things like that.

DAN: Evan came to us

from Four Winds hospital

and they were pretty adamant
that the bipolar disorder was,

um, managed, medication-wise

and that he was on
the proper dosages

and, uh, that seemed
to be the case

on some level we saw.

And then, right away,
within a few days,

Evan decided to venture

off campus and, uh...

Obvious question
at that point was:

Was it really controlled?

Three days in he decided
that he wasn't gonna have it.

You know, that this whole thing

about the adults being in charge

really wasn't for him.

He made it a little bit more
complicated than he had to.

Built in a little
dramatic effect,

he went out a window.
He could've went out the door.

We don't have...
The doors aren't locked.

Oh, I see,
so he went out the window

and then went on the roof,

and then jumped down.

So this was like...
That involved some doing.

HART:
Dana gets a phone call
from Evan,

that he's climbed out a window

and escaped from Wellspring

and is in some guy's house.

Of course, we had to go
to juvenile court

because the guy whose house
he broke into,

uh, pressed charges.

I think the neighbor
whose house he was in

was quite unforgiving.

You know, luckily,
he didn't do anything

with that man's house that day,

but he was trying to get

a rise out of his parents
to come rescue him.

Show them just how much
he's suffering

and he'll go home
and stir it all up again

and be back
in the hospital again in...

You know, another year.

It was as if he was in a game.

It was an important event,

and it really kind of marked
that need for a switch.

That-that Evan really needed
to be held accountable

for the relational damage
he was doing.

So that event was a microcosm

of what had happened
in his life.

He wasn't being held
accountable on some level

for the damage he did
to you all.

That was the first night
we were here.

We sat right here, right?

Yup.

As I recall, um,
you had us in first

and kind of gave us
a little heads up

and then Evan came in

and he had us,
I think, sit on his...

Sit in our laps and... Right.

And you told him we had to talk
to him really honestly.

Right.

And I did and it was...

It was like
this incredible relief

because I had permission
to say what I was feeling

without being afraid
of breaking him.

You know? I remember.

And you-you were like, "Really?"

[CHUCKLES]
Yeah, I was like, really?

Well, if I tell him
that I'm afraid

I'm gonna find him dead,
he'll explode.

And the world will end
and, you know,

all this stuff
will come rushing out,

and we'll be poisonous,

and we won't be
able to survive it.

And I think,
to all of our amazement,

we not only survived,

but started building,
you know, on that.

[♪♪]

DANA: Finally he started to work

with the therapy at Wellspring.

And slowly, bit by bit,

he started to come around
to their philosophy.

We came frequently for,
you know, sessions,

where we learned
how to communicate as a family.

With Evan...
With his unique needs.

It was like learning
a new language.

DANA:
They basically say
that children are responsible

for their actions.

Let's put it really simply:

If you make a mess,
you clean it up.

Whether it's a physical mess

like you spilled something,
you need to clean up,

or an emotional mess.

I remember coming here

and seeing, uh, Evan working
on that stone wall over there.

DAN:
For a child to think
they cleaned up their mess

and they made something
a little better,

rather than feeling
like you were punished

or you had consequences
or whatever.

But in this case you get to feel

like you really
repaired something.

Yeah, and maybe that's even
better than it was before.

DANA:
I think what happened
at Wellspring

is that they encouraged
Evan to be a boy.

I think a lot
of their philosophy is

to let children be children.

DAN:
When he came he was
kind of running the show.

You know,
he was in adult conversations,

and he would much prefer
being with the staff

than he would
with the other kids.

He really needed
to be a kid again

and just have fun
and relax and...

And forget about all those
bigger issues.

DANA:
Especially for Evan who was
really acting like

such a teenager
at such a young age,

it was a miracle
to see him get past

that facade of "I'm too cool."

And to just be a pure boy.

And I remember a time
seeing him at Wellspring

playing in the yard
with pure boyness,

that boy essence, which is what
you need at that age.

It's a beautiful day,
you're throwing a ball

with your friends.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

DANA:
Early on, I'd say in the first
four weeks or so,

he began to earn weekend passes,

so the weekend
of Michael's birthday,

he finally did get released,

and he was at the birthday party

and I remember looking at him
and thinking,

"Oh, he looks like a boy."

I mean, the old Evan
would've been too cool,

he would've been
turning up his nose,

and he would've been sneering,

he wouldn't have
in a million years

let the clown paint his face.
Okay, never.

He allowed himself to be a kid.

I... I saw those layers
peel away.

And a lot of it had to do with

how strict the counselors were.
They weren't having it.

Evan could try to talk his way
out of anything.

And Dan's just saying
"I'm not going anywhere."

DAN:
Remember, you know,
bipolar disorder is not just

a disorder of mood,
it's a disorder of judgment.

And for kids
that's so debilitating.

If the adults
don't hold them close

and make them responsible.

What he needed to know
is that you guys were in charge,

and then he could build
from your judgment,

and that's what he allowed
us to do first,

'cause he looked around,
he said, "Okay,

I'm not getting over on these
guys, I'll let that happen."

And then we obviously
bridge that to you.

It was one of the shortest
stays we've really ever had,

uh, of a boy with so much
going on in his life.

Three months
is really an unusual time

to get all that done.

DANA:
By the time
Evan finished at Wellspring,

the lithium had definitely
kicked in.

Along with the therapy,
it was working,

and you couldn't have
one without the other.

He seemed well enough
to rejoin our family.

HART:
The whole family went to
Wellspring, and we all learned,

and when it was over,
here we had this kid again,

and what do we do with him?

HART:
So we decided to see
whether we could get him

into a mainstream school
which was sensitive

to kids who had issues.

So we got him into a school
called York Prep.

And suddenly everything
was different.

[BELL RINGING]

We would get a report card
and he was, like,

one of the best students
in the class.

The teachers were saying

"I wish all my students
were like Evan."

He got the prize
in the science project.

HART: So what's this?
My science fair.

DANA: Now you've got the ribbon.

The ribbon.

BOY:
It was so hard,
taking them so fast.

There are, like, 40 pictures
with digital camera,

and none of 'em worked.

DANA:
One of the great things
about Evan going to York

is he found such a great group
of friends.

It took awhile for him to, like,

kind of gain your trust
and stuff like that,

and, um, after awhile, it was...

He was just one of those people
I could talk to about anything,

and come to him
with any problem.

Once we started hanging out,
I started to, like, you know,

figure out his interest in toys.

And I really liked toys,
like, toys was my thing,

and toys was his thing,
and cartoons were his thing.

And cartoons were my thing.

Well,
he was definitely different

from all the other kids
we hung out with.

Nobody seemed to have strong
opinions like him.

He was really set in his ways.

And once he had an idea
he wasn't gonna let it go.

Lot of stuff people say in high
school they don't really mean

or they're just trying to be
popular, but, like, you know,

Evan, he would just go right
into it, he wouldn't hold back.

What I liked about Evan was that
he, uh, was really creative,

and was interested in a lot of
things that, like, not like...

Not just TV. Like, a lot of kids
were just watching TV,

and he was making TV.

[ALL LAUGHING]

HART:
Evan had various,
you know, movie ideas.

When he was younger
he roped me into shooting them.

HART: Come on, let's start.
All right, ready.

It's rolling now.
You guys, shut up!

HART: Okay, ready?

Three, two, one, action.

Hi, I'm Adam Luke, and I'm here
to host a new reality TV show

titled, "What it Takes
to be an Astronaut."

HART:
There was a certain
amount of chaos

that was involved
in the creation of them.

All right, a redneck, and then,
Gabe, you have to say something.

You have Chinese ADD,
don't forget.

[IMITATING CHINESE ACCENT]
I go to space all the time.

Spaces. Spaces. No gravity.

Okay, I'm not Chinese, 'cause
it's too hard to be Chinese.

You're Chi... You have ADD,
what's the ADD about?

ADD, ADD, no Chinese.

[ALL LAUGHING]

Do you know how long it took us

just to get through
these three lines? It took...

HART:
Just try to play it a little
more serious, okay?

You. Who are you supposed to be?

HART:
It doesn't really... At this
point, it doesn't matter.

I wanna do... I wanna do
the whole thing over again.

HART:
What do you mean,
"the whole thing"?

'Cause I was...

[ALL SINGING INDISTINCTLY]

♪ I say, "Yo, man
You want to fly through space" ♪

WILL:
All the films we were making
were all disasters.

We always got too excited
about 'em,

'cause, like,
we'd have microphones,

we have a nice camera,
and we'd, like,

talk about it and talk about it
and talk about it.

And then we'd just...
Wouldn't finish it.

[♪♪]

AIDAN:
There was a summer Evan
went to New York Film Academy,

and asked me to be
in one of his movies.

The assignment was to shoot, uh,

in black and white and no sound.

He made a movie
about me waking up

in a world with no sound
and no color.

[MOUTHING] No!

I never knew that there was
anything wrong with him.

He took medication.
I had no idea.

Never brought it up.

Never talked about it.

Sometimes we got a little
suspicious 'cause, like,

he would just be really quiet
for a long period of time,

but we just accustomed to it
because he did it a lot.

He would miss school
every now and then.

I can tell... I knew...
I would, like,

I would tell him
he's on his period,

because he's, like,
he looks like he... You know,

he would have a month where
he's just, like, moping around.

And then he'd have a month
where's he's, like,

really happy, really happy.

And he would tell me,
"Listen, the more happy I get,

the more pissed off
I'm gonna get later."

AIDAN:
One time, I think,
going out to the roof,

I remember him sitting
on the ledge, like...

And it really, like, scared me.

And he just seemed to be
completely fearless,

like, almost willing to just
walk... Like, walk on the edge.

And I really, like,
kind of yelled at him, like,

"Get down from the edge,"
you know.

That's, like,
not something you do.

And it just... He kind of
distanced himself like that.

It was almost like showing...

Showing me, like,
"I don't really care."

We talked about it a little,

but he always
sort of brushed it away,

and he sort of said,
"But I'm over that now." And...

We all thought
he was pretty good,

and he always acted
really great.

And there were no real signs
of any, like,

real depression or anything.

I was totally optimistic
about his health

and the direction
that he was gonna go.

NICHOLAS:
When I'd come home from school
and spend holidays,

I remember remarking to myself,
you know,

"This is a much more warm,
loving household

then it was two years earlier.

I guess that's what I saw
after Wellspring,

that Dana and my father

really showing him that

within our family lies
a really strong foundation

that he can trust.

And during that time
it really did seem like

everything was under control.

[♪♪]

HART:
As the years went by,
after Wellspring,

and he continued to be
the top student in his class,

he continued to have
good friends,

that there weren't
any big issues.

I thought that maybe
he was cured.

You know,
maybe he's gonna have a life.

You know,
I'd go with Evan to visit

his older brother in college,

and Evan was, like,
looking at college,

and thinking,
"Well, I can do it.

I can have a life like this."

You know,
as the years proceeded,

I was not thinking that maybe
the telephone was going to ring,

I was thinking that, "Hey,
this... This kid is different

from my brother.
He's got a shot."

[♪♪]

My brother... There'd never
really been a diagnosis.

He was a successful suicide.

And that was my big fear
about Evan.

From an early age,
both Scott and Evan,

they were overwhelmed
by their emotions.

With my brother, you know,

I had learned how to, you know,
be his guide.

You know,
we went to the same school,

we went to the same college.

We were very close.

And I'd been my brother's keeper

up until the point really where
he started living with Martine,

his girlfriend.

WOMAN: Well, Scott was fun.

He was brilliant.

He was very creative,
he was a great skier,

he was an athlete.
We went skiing together.

We really had a lot of fun

and I was totally seduced
when I met him.

I knew he was
taking medication all along

and I knew he was
seeing a psychiatrist.

He was getting some help.

I never really...
I had absolutely no experience

with depression
before I met Scott.

So I knew that there was
a problem,

but I didn't really see it,

because Scott was always
very optimistic,

and he was very outgoing,

but I think I was still
noticing something

after the first year.

He had mood swings,
he had ups and downs.

And the second year trying to
kill himself a couple of times

while he was with me.

I was supposed to get up
in the morning

and find him dead next to me.

And he was amazed
when he woke up,

I assume he didn't take enough.

You know, he was trying
to overdose with medication

and maybe with drugs... Heroin.

After his two attempts, he was
really able to talk about it,

and communicate about it,

and I could really understand,

as much as I could,

the depth of the desperation.

He said he was in a hole.

In a tunnel, in a hole.
There was no way out.

The pain was...

so profound, he...

He could not imagine going on
with it, and living with it,

even though I was there.

It did not matter.

Me and his family were not
enough to keep him alive.

At those moments
of such despair and pain,

the only way out was to die.

I don't like to think that maybe
I wasn't really clued in

to what was going on,
though I probably wasn't,

because I wasn't willing
to accept the fact

that, uh, anything so terrifying
to me could be on the way.

And particularly because Scott
didn't seem like

an unhappy person.

All it tells you is that
there is so much more

to know about people you love

than you can
ever really uncover.

DANA:
What happened that weekend
when Scott died?

I don't know.

Nope.
I have not the faintest idea.

Not the faintest idea.

DANA: You found him.

What, what? You found him

"Who found him"? You found him.

I found him?

I don't remember doing that. No.

What's more, I think I can
get along without memory.

I don't remember at all.

[♪♪]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

MARTINE:
I think it was a Saturday.

We came for the weekend up here.

Fourth of July weekend.

Scott was totally normal.

Fun, nice.

Suddenly, we... You know,
it was a beautiful afternoon,

and we said, "Where is Scott?"

Scott was not around.

I knew something was wrong.

Because I knew
that the caretaker had guns.

And Scott knew that he had guns.

So I went there and Beati went
in another direction.

I couldn't get inside the house
because it was locked.

I don't exactly remember,

but I knew he didn't have
the guns.

When I came back

I saw Beati came back,

and her lipstick was smeared
around her mouth,

and she said
"I just found Scott."

And she found him in the jeep...
In the car...

Near the carriage house.

And what he had done

was take the hose
from the vacuum cleaner,

and put the hose
from the exhaust pipe

inside the car.

[LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN'S
"MOONLIGHT SONATA" PLAYING]

HART: When my brother died,

I decided to make a film.

It was too painful for me to,
like,

really deal with his suicide,

So I made the film about a, uh,

sculptor friend of my mother's
who came from Spain

to make a sculpture
for the grave.

I documented the process
of making the sculpture.

And the instillation.

I thought that maybe in
the course of making the film

I could find some meaning
about my brother's suicide.

MARTINE:
It took me about seven,
eight years

to come back to normal.

I was mutilated when he died.
I was mutilated.

Half of me was dead.

Completely dead.

HART: My parents were shattered.

It was like broken glass.
Shattered.

HART:
What... What did happen to him?

Well,
he obviously committed suicide.

HART:
Why do you think he did it?

"Why did he do it?"

Well, he was...

in a terrible state
of depression.

What brought on the depression,
I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know.

I can't tell you.

I can't tell you.

I can't tell you.
The words don't exist

to tell another person

how destroyed

part of you has been.

They just don't exist.

I can't tell you.
But I can tell you

that it's something
you never recover from.

What is true
is that life goes on,

but not the way
you wanted it to,

and not the way
you planned for it to.

But you don't recover.

I don't think.

[♪♪]

[BIRD CAWING]

HART:
I thought if Evan
was going to kill himself,

it'd be similar to my
experience with my brother.

It was like a slow decline.

But Evan seemed to be
actually doing pretty well.

What can I get you?
BOY: I want a beer.

Light? Yeah.

[BOY BELCHES]

Ha-ha.

So why are you out so late?

Well, I've just seen
a Kiss concert, man.

Kiss rules! Kiss rocks!

[BOTH YELLING INDISTINCTLY]

HART:
That's good,
now watch him leave.

Hey, hey, hey.

HART: He didn't pay.

Yeah. I just went like, "Hey!"

HART: Run, run, Mike.

Run, Evan.

You know, I mean,
Evan was never, you know,

like an over-the-top,
effervescent, happy kid.

But from all the... The markers:

Is he getting into trouble? No.

Not at all.

Can you do the fish?

The fish! Like this.

I can do the snake. Like that.

I can do the seashell.

HART: Have we seen the police?

And we certainly
did see the police

for a number of occasions
before Wellspring.

No police.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

Take it with me.

DANA:
Evan was doing so well.
It was like a miracle.

We couldn't believe it.
You just couldn't believe it.

Is this the same kid? I mean,
here he is, and he's growing,

and he's popular, and he has
his lovely friends,

and they have a wonderful time.

Suddenly there's hair there

and his jaw gets firmer
and he's taller than I am.

And he's a man.
He's a young man.

Very handsome,
very popular with the girls.

But not really
all that interested in them.

His voice went from
like this to like this.

Like, you're...
You're in the shot.

Like...

[ALL LAUGHING]

Like,
let's worry about the door shot,

let's do that
when I'm not filming.

BOY:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, do the shot.

You know, like after he comes in
you can do that...

BOY: All right.

DANA:
He really hated being sick.

GIRL:
We went... We were like...
Did you hear us yelling outside?

We were like, "Evan!"

Three E, 3W, whatever.

He didn't wanna be different.

What teenage boy does?

Yeah,
so I'll see you guys later.

In, like, half an hour.
I just have to wait for...

Okay, it's just Angela's
around the corner.

All right. Bye.

I'll see you soon. Bye!

[CHATTER]

GIRL: Oh, my gosh, what?

Oh, are we talking
about this again?

Are you better now? Yay.

High five.

NICHOLAS:
A lot of the time he seemed
really out of it to me.

And I really attributed that
to his drugs.

'Cause I remember going through
a turnstile door with him

and him sort of just
stopping in the middle,

or not really paying attention

to what was going on around him,

and I'd stop and say
"What is it with this kid?"

And I'd say, "Oh, well,
he's taking lithium."

DANA:
We had been talking for a while

about trying
without the medication,

'cause it made him tired,
it made his mouth dry,

it was really something
he didn't wanna do.

So we said "Okay.

You know, you...
You really wanna try this?"

And he really did.

And the doctor said, "Okay."

So he gradually went down
in the lithium dose

over a course
of four to six weeks.

LADD: "March 30th, 2005.

"Lithium 0.56.

"Now sub therapeutic.

"Was 1200 milligrams, didn't
take meds for a few days,

"became quote 'more talkative.'

"At first,
decreased lithium was difficult,

"now fine.

He feels better on lower dose."

After awhile
I wasn't that conv...

You know, that he really was...

I mean, I knew he was bipolar,
but...

He seemed so fine.

Also, I remember we talked
to him head on,

"Do you have thoughts
of suicide?

Do you wanna kill yourself?
Do you wanna harm yourself?"

And he said no, you know.

"I don't."

[♪♪]

WOMAN:
Kids know that if they say
certain things,

or if they do certain things,
they're gonna be stopped.

You know.
Especially if they have parents

who are attentive
to what's going on with them.

So if a kid really
doesn't wanna be stopped,

he's not gonna say anything.

Evan may have gotten to
the point where he got really...

Just better
at masking it externally.

But internally,
it's a lot of suffering,

and this was just
the beginning, I mean,

it started when he was
much younger,

and it wasn't going away.

HART:
We went on vacation
for two weeks in Nantucket.

And he seemed depressed.
He seemed subdued.

Didn't seem too happy.

He wasn't doing good.

DANA: Then school started.

He's sullen, he's depressed.

As the weeks unfolded
in September,

he started getting more anxious
about his homework.

And at one point, he came to me
and he said very seriously,

"Mom, I need your help.

I need you to stay after me."

HART:
We had contacted
his psychiatrist

and tried to make a meeting
as soon as possible

to increase his dose of lithium.

DANA:
We said, "Let's get him back
on the lithium,

this experiment didn't work."

So we made an appointment
with the doctor

for the following Tuesday.
October 4th.

[♪♪]

ADAM:
We hung out with him
that Friday night.

We went to another teen club,
me and Nick.

We invited Evan to go,
but he just didn't want to.

I mean, it might've been
his curfew or whatever,

he just didn't wanna go.

And we didn't think it was
that big of a deal.

We were just like, "Whatever,

he wants to go home and chill,
so..."

There was nothing
really beforehand

that we could've seen.

I think if, like,

if someone is that sure

that they wanna do that
to themselves,

they're gonna hide it
from someone, you know.

NICHOLAS:
The night he died
I came over for dinner.

It was a Sunday evening.

We were all eating together,

and I know Evan had some
homework that was unfinished,

and he was...

being a little obnoxious

about not wanting
to do his homework,

and started putting his feet
on the table,

and, you know, his mom was
nagging him about his homework.

And they had a tiff.

And he was mad.

The fight was very intense.

As it often was.

And, um, you know,
really just deeply intense.

I was doing the dishes,
and I was hot.

You know. I was tired of this.

And he goes up the stairs
and he said, "Mom, I hate you."

HART:
And he shuts the door.
And he locks it.

NICHOLAS:
Leaving that night,
I didn't think anything of it.

He wasn't behaving in any way
that would make me think,

"This child is gonna
end his life tonight."

Not in a million,
million, million years.

I mean, on my good days

I've acted worse
than him at dinner.

By this time it's around 10:00,

and I went into our bedroom
with Mikey,

and we're both reading.

I was reading for a little bit,

and I go to check in on Evan.

And he's unlocked the door.

I go in he's sitting
in his underwear

on his bed with his computer

And, you know,
I came over and I said,

"Well, how you doing?
What's... What's happening?"

And he said, "I'm fine, Dad.

I'm doing my homework."

His computer,
it looked as though he was

doing his homework,

so I go back to read with Mikey

for another five minutes,
and, uh,

you know, it's Mikey's bedtime.

So I bring Mikey into the room

and Evan's not there.

[♪♪]

I immediately thought that
he had jumped out the window.

But it was an airshaft so you
couldn't really see anything.

Mikey shows up with this
little penlight

and I shine it down the shaft,

and I think I see something
but it's hard to tell.

Uh, and I'm starting to,
you know,

feel pretty concerned
at this point,

and I run downstairs
to find the super,

who had access to the airshaft.

I guess I was downstairs and,
uh,

about to recline and watch TV

and I was, uh,
half asleep, I guess.

And nothing unusual,

I just heard a noise.

And I thought nothing of it.

I thought maybe the girl
upstairs dropped something.

Nothing. Nothing.

And I guess, I don't know
how many minutes later,

uh, somebody came banging on...
Was banging on my door.

We were with Roger,
we had the light.

I had, um,
a cell phone and keys.

And, uh, we went through this
labyrinth, some kind of way.

And Hart got there first.
And, um, and Evan was there.

And, um, he was on his back,

and there was blood.

I thought he might be alive.

But I... I felt his pulse,
and he wasn't.

So it got pretty chaotic.

I was screaming, "Evan, Evan,

Evan, Evan, Evan, Evan!"

You know,
"Evan." I just... "Please."

And I went...
And Hart was in front of me,

and I said, "Get out of the way,
I wanna give him mouth-to-mouth,

I wanna... Move out of the way."

And he said, "Dana, just go...

The paramedics are coming, go
upstairs, take care of Michael,

take care of... It's okay.
And he was very calm.

I called Nick

to come and look after

Mikey and Dana,

'cause I had to go to
the hospital with... With Evan.

I was there comforting Michael,

and we were praying
and I thought

that maybe he'd still live,

maybe he's just broken
some bones, maybe he'll live.

And, um, at some point,

I don't know when,
but Nick showed up.

NICHOLAS:
We pulled up
in front of the house,

there were police cars outside,

it was, like, "This is
fucking real. This is real."

And I walked into the apartment,

and there were
police officers downstairs.

You know, they looked at me

and started approaching me to
say, you know, "Who are you?"

And I pushed them out of the way
and just ran to Dana.

And Michael was so amazing,
'cause he kept saying,

"Mom, he's gonna be okay,
Mom, he's gonna be okay.

Mom, he's gonna be okay,
Mom, he's gonna be okay."

And we're just holding each
other, and then, you know,

then Hart called
and I just knew immediately...

Just knew immediately
what happened, that he was dead.

I just couldn't believe it.

So then, um, Jean drove me
to the hospital,

and he was at St. Vincent's,
where he had been before,

and I was taken
into the room where he was,

on the stretcher, and, um...

Um, you know, he wasn't cold,
and he had his, um,

he had his boxer shorts on.

I took the sheet down like this,
I held him,

and, um, I closed his eyes.

And that was it.

And then...

I got a call in the car

from Nick,

and he said, "I found his note.

I found his note."

[♪♪]

NICHOLAS:
I remember the officers
asking me

whether there was
a suicide note,

and I hadn't even
thought about that,

and we looked around his room,

and there was nothing, and then
he pointed to the computer,

and opened it,
touched the screen,

and, sure enough,

a letter came up.

[♪♪]

To be honest,

the gist of the letter was...

what every fucking 15-year-old

thinks about themself.

That "I'm not good enough,

"no one likes me,

things won't get better."

The difference is Evan felt that

20,000 times stronger

than any normal 15-year-old,

and he believed more strongly

that things wouldn't get better

and that there was no future,

and living was too painful,

too difficult, and...

death was his only answer.

But it was, I mean, verbatim...

I could've checked off
that list and, you know,

if he had showed me that note
before he made his decision,

I could've gone through it
with him and said,

"Thought that, thought that,
thought that.

"I realized they're all
untrue for me,

"they're definitely
all untrue for you.

"You know, and some of
the qualities about yourself

"that make you feel
different right now,

"you're gonna learn
in five years

"that those are your
best qualities,

"and those are what
set you apart from people

"and make you interesting

and attract others to you."

But, you know,

that opportunity did not arise.

So, what do you make of that?

I think

that he foresaw...

He must have been getting

a glimpse of adult life,

and that he foresaw

that he was not going to make it

in the way that he
wanted to make it.

You know, in psychiatry,

bipolar is our cancer.

It kills people.

You do everything you can,
and some people can be saved,

and probably we could've saved...

Definitely we could've
saved him for a while,

but he would have gone
off his medication,

They... All these kids do,
they all go off them.

And when he went off,
he just went so fast.

Maybe his illness was changing

into the type where people
really do get crazy.

He never talked
about any of this?

Any of that. No.

No? He never talked...?
Any of that.

He denied feeling it, he never
talked about any of this.

Never did he say anything like
he didn't trust his friends?

But this is crazy talk.
That's crazy talk.

HART: I mean, you know...
Crazy talk,

but it's done so sanely.

Numbered, and so precise.

That's what makes me so mad
with all the portrayals of, uh,

mental illness that you see
on TV and movies,

it's like raving, crazy,
foaming at the mouth,

not, you know,
"sanely" sitting there...

Hyper-sanely... typing this,
you know, horrible thing out.

Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch.

Just with thought, already
knowing he was gonna do it.

You know, that's insanity.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

On behalf of the congregation
of this church

I would like to welcome
all of you

in mourning the passing
of Evan today.

This is a place...

MARTINE:
When I went to Evan's funeral,

I felt that I was going through
the same thing again,

it was like a repeat.
It was the same church,

it was the same family.

It was that little boy,
35 years later.

And Beati was with me.

Scott's mother...
And Evan's grandmother,

and Hart's mother...
Was sitting next to me

and hold... Hanging onto me,

and she would say
during the ceremony,

she would say,
"Martine, why did Scott die?

Why did Scott kill himself?"

And, you know,
she knew that she had a son

who committed suicide,

and who died,
but she could not remember.

[CONGREGATION PRAYING]

I was briefly
trying to explain to her

that it was the same disease,

that he died for the same
reasons Evan died.

I feel relieved to know
that Evan has found peace,

even if it means
that we must take on pain.

Through his memory we realize

the extreme precariousness
and preciousness of life.

We must cherish and savor
the lives we have,

the relationships we enjoy,

as much as we can
for as long as we can.

[SOFT MUSIC PLAYING]

♪ May God bless
And keep you always ♪

♪ May your wishes
All come true ♪

♪ May you always do for others ♪

♪ That others do for you ♪

♪ May you build a ladder
To the stars ♪

♪ Climb on every rung ♪

♪ May you stay ♪

BOTH: ♪ Forever young ♪

A lot of the time,
before I go to sleep,

sometimes I just, I mean,

I can't help
but think about him.

You don't wanna, like,

make everything depressed

by talking about it every day,
you know?

But it's always there, you know.

I mean,
you can't not talk about it.

When I read his note,

I could tell that it was
spirit of the moment,

and that, hopefully at least,

he didn't mean
some of the stuff that he said.

His note, it didn't come
from the Evan I knew.

It was just... It was depressing

to see, like, just the horrible
stuff he said

about not having friends, and...

I know he didn't mean it.

BOTH: ♪ May you stay ♪

♪ Forever young ♪

To thy hands,
oh merciful savior,

we command thy servant, Evan.

Receive him into the arms
of thy mercy,

into the blessed rest
of everlasting peace,

and into the glorious company

of the saints in light.

Amen. ALL: Amen.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

They forgot to, uh, dig the...

MAN:

Everything but the hole.

Well, anyway, who would've
told them where to dig it?

I don't know
how these things work.

I don't know, you know.

Somebody has to mark off where...

All right, we'll do it,
we'll do it.

[THUNDER CRASHES]

Oh, you.

WOMAN:

Oh, he's laughing, all right.

Mm-hm. You better believe it.

He's roaring over this weather.

He that raised up
Jesus from the dead

will also give life
to our mortal bodies

in the sure and certain hope of
the resurrection to eternal life

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We command to almighty God
our brother, Evan,

and we commit his body
to the ground,

earth to earth, ashes to ashes,

dust to dust. Amen.

ALL: Amen.

[♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHES]

MARTINE:
When somebody is that deep

and far into depression,

in such incredible pain,
there's nothing we can do.

Nothing.

BEATRICE: It's survival...

Is really very difficult.

But, anyway,
you do the best you can.

Why else does he put us there?

You know that. There isn't any...

There isn't any choice.

If you found one, believe me,
deary, pass it along.

'Cause there is no choice.

There isn't a choice to cope.

There isn't.

I have a family. I have people
I love and people who love me,

and, uh, you really have
no choice

but to get up and put one foot
in front of the other.

And, um, basically,

I think the thing
that I think about most is, uh,

is I just can't believe it.

I can't believe this.
I can't believe it.

I can't believe
I'm sitting here.

I can't believe...

that, um...

that I gave birth to this boy
and raised him...

and buried him.
I can't believe it.

It's just a sense of disbelief.

I don't know if I'll ever really
understand that it's true.

That this really happened.

I can't believe
it really happened.

Tell me it's a dream.

I can't believe it. I can't.

And I can't believe
that the days continue to go by,

and the...

And that the world
continues to rotate

without him.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

Oh, nice. Here, look at that.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

Into the ground again.

I hope this tree grows
strong and proud,

and beautiful,
to remind us of Evan.

And always provide
beauty and shade

for future generations.

DANA:
And that every time we see it,

we'll always think
of how much we loved him,

and how we'll always
remember him.

That's the part
that is gonna, I guess, change,

which is that as time passes

I'll begin to believe
that it's true,

and that, basically,
what I have left of him

is those...
The 15 years that we had,

and, uh...

that there was beauty in that.

And joy, and, uh,

that maybe there's a lesson,
or maybe we can learn something,

or... Or communicate something,
but, um,

you know,
in terms of coping it's just,

you know, it's our choice.

I don't have a choice.

There is none.

[♪♪]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

DANA:
Even though we lost
this battle,

we'll never forget
the experience we had

at Wellspring.

[MAN GRUNTING]

HART:
I volunteered to make beams

for the barn at Wellspring.

By the farm and sawmill.

And it was a way of giving
something back to Wellspring,

that had given us so much.

[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

DANA:
And that's gonna be a building
where other kids

are gonna be able to get the
kind of therapy that Evan got.

These beams here,
these are ours.

All the side beams,

and look at that inscription
over there.

DANA:
Here was an opportunity
to make something physical

in memory of Evan.

People can say, "Well,
who's Evan?" It doesn't matter.

What matters is,
is that, you know,

somebody loved Evan enough to...

want to remember his name.

[♪♪]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
IN THE DISTANCE]

MAN:
So we come thanking God
for what he has blessed,

for the sacredness of this land,

asking that God will continue
to watch over

everyone who works here and all
those who've been part of it.

[APPLAUSE]

[CHATTER]

[♪♪]