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57 out of 90 people found the following comment useful :-
Moving/Heartbreaking/Honest Film, 26 June 2006

Author: movieman2121 from United States

I think this film has to be one of the most moving, and heartbreaking films of recent times.

The film basically starts off with a suicide in a school toilet. U don't see who it is, then from there it goes to the beginning of the day, and we get to know 6 characters, and they are going through some pretty heavy things, anyway eventually one of them will commit suicide.

I've been teaching Physical Education in schools for 8 years now, and never in a film have I seen such an accurate portrayal of what 'really' goes on in school life.

The film is shot beautifully, and sounds incredible.

The ending is so shocking, and so what one would not expect, it is something that will haunt me for days to come.

This is Definitely one to watch.

I think the fact that the Director/Writer was in school only a few years ago is a major contributing factor to the raw honesty expressed in the film.

The film is shot in two separate 'modes' if you will. Firstly there is the smooth observation style where we get to know the characters in their school environment as they go through their drama, but the stunning part of the film is in the interview sections, where we get to know the characters back stories, and their deepest, darkest thoughts.

You keep wondering, who is it going to be (who commits suicide) and as the drama unfolds you keep changing your mind, until bam, it hits you in the face in the final five minutes. I am all over the place in my writing, but I've just seen it at a Media screening in Australia, and I am still in a bit of shock.

It's one of the best Australian Films I have seen in recent years.

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29 out of 47 people found the following comment useful :-
Not for the faint hearted. it's difficult to tell who will love this film and who will find it thoroughly abhorred, 19 August 2006

Author: john_keats from Australia

Well... What to say.

I think i shall start with a confession. I have cried 4 times in my life. once when my dad died, twice due to a girlfriend in high school, and at the end of this film. This film deals with the real confronting issues of 6 school kids, forcing them quite uncomfortably into the open for all the world to see. i have never seen a film that deals with the human emotional condition as well as this. everything from incest to incontinence is covered here and i doubt there are many people who are safe from the sting of familiarity with at least a couple of scenes.

It starts off with a suicide. at 2:37pm. then without letting you know who it was that died, the story begins to be told from the start of the day. it follows the lives of 6 school kids up until 2:37pm. it interchangeably, and edited with personal interviews of the 6 teenagers, lets you know everything about their lives. their loves, hates, dreams, desires, secrets, shame, false confidence, self loathing, corruption and arrogance. the overall outcome of which is a sort of "whodunnit" trying to discover the identity of the suicidal before it is revealed at the end of the film. without spoiling anything i must let you know. do not feel cheated by the ending. it contains a very important lesson.

And now a warning. this film is definitely NOT for the faint hearted. Many people actually walked out of the cinema half way through when i saw it. Disgusted by some of it's content. Or perhaps it's that it's sometimes hard to face the cold hard truth of reality. This is what high school is like for many people. i'm sure most would agree.

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25 out of 40 people found the following comment useful :-
Well shot, well intentioned, and utterly wrong headed., 11 November 2006

Author: sethrp-1 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I caught 2:37 at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles. It's a very well shot first film (though the DV format begins to show itself in outside scenes), and I'm sure it has good intentions of showing us the "dark side" of high school - in other words every side of high school. But the filmmaker doesn't have the talent to write or direct up to the premise's promise. There are several characters, but none of them are any more than what the plot requires them to be. There's no depth to these caricatures beyond the machinations of "I am troubled teen X, I have Y problem." The perceived roles of men and women in this story are phenomenally troublesome.

Let's start with the men. You have the stoner kid who's gay, the jock who's also gay, the boy who rapes his sister, and Mr. Peepants. As the stereotype requires, all gay men must be sexually unfulfilled and violent toward women and themselves. Naturally (or unnaturally as the stereotype assumes), the two gay male characters beat up women, Peepants, and themselves. I'd be perfectly fine with these characterizations if the stereotypes were turned on their heads, or if the characters somehow transcended them. Yet neither took place, and that's all there is to these characters' stories.

Next, the ladies. One young woman wants to be a bulimic housewife, another is the pregnant rapee of the sister-raping brother, and there's the girl who kills herself (I'll get to that later). Again, I don't think there's a requirement of political correctness for filmmakers (I'd be out of a job were that the case), but I do think that it's only justified if there's more to that character or story. If that archetype were being used to reveal something about character other than "I'm a teenager and life sucks," I'd be happy as a clam. But nothing new is revealed! Nothing is subverted, or changed, or sublimated.

Finally, the girl who kills herself. This is blunt and HIGHLY sloppy storytelling. We're supposed to sit through 5 minutes of a girl violently killing herself who we've seen for maybe 30 seconds through the whole film? We've followed all these other stories for an hour and a half, and now we're invited to torture ourselves for a character that isn't part of the story? It's cheap, exploitative, and sloppy. Despite the millions of crappy indie films that came before this, you have to EARN something like that. You can't simply purchase it on credit. So this suicide happens, we get wrap-ups from the characters that go similarly nowhere but down, and the film ends. What have I learned? I already knew high school sucked - been there, done that. I already knew people have stereotypical views of gay men and young women. I already knew that kids with disabilities are mocked.

What else is there, then? Smoke, mirrors, and some really nice views of leaves. Oh, and the nastiest deus ex machina I've seen in a while.

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31 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
Must see for anyone in high school or with kids in school., 22 August 2006

Author: from Australia

It was riveting. I just could not look away. As the movie rolled on I started to feel that it was powerful and confronting, but i had no idea how much more intense it would get.

The movie gives an insight into what unfortunately is everyday life for a lot of school kids. Some of us live outside that environment and would walk by and not know what is happening.

Parents need to see this film in particular, just to see a glimpse of what their kids go through. Often parent dismiss their kids problems as trivial, but unfortunately to a high schooler they are massive. And unfortunately the problems can escalate into a tragedy.

Definitively a must see for all.

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24 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
Derivative ensemble teen drama, 26 July 2006
Author: burntime-1 from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Three parts Gus van Sant's 'Elephant' to one part Gregg Araki's 'Totally F***ed Up', the debut feature from 19 year old director Murali K Thalluri - which replaces a high school massacre with suicide - is a film so derivative that it borders on plagiarism.

This re-creation of Van Sant's 'an ordinary high school day - except that it's not' opened this year's 55th Melbourne International Film Festival to a largely underwhelmed audience.

Key elements such as tracking shots, temporal displacement, soundtrack and cinematography were copied almost verbatim from Van Sant's film.

Awkward dialogue and pacing, coupled with inconsistent performances from the amateur cast, ensured that the majority of the film's plot 'twists' were telegraphed to viewers far too soon.

While the inexperienced young director deserves kudos for financing his debut feature totally independently, the only merit in this earnest, awkward and unoriginal film lies in the fact that it was made at all.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Exploitative but with one saving grace, 5 December 2007

Author: Sam Russell from Melbourne, Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I couldn't relate to this film. I'm surprised that people are lauding it for being so 'realistic'. How many people at your school were victim to incest? How many closet homosexual jocks were there? How many quiet people that you never noticed committed suicide? Hmmm. OK you wouldn't know even if their were. But really these are explosive problems which many us never deal with. And yet there are so many teenagers with subtle problems which could have been explored. But hey, where's the 'entertainment' in that?

With regards to the girl who committed suicide - I found this to be exploitative. I actually think MANY people in High School at some stage feel invisible, ignored and unwanted. But what possesses someone to violently commit suicide on just another day of being ignored and unnoticed? The filmmaker decided this girl would suicide to make the film more provocative. And the graphic nature of the suicide to make it even more provocative. I didn't buy it as a real life scenario.

And the problems of the other students I didn't fully relate to. Bullying is explored but that's been done to death, we all know it goes on and it truly is a matter of resolve within that person. Closet homosexuality? Pfft, another cliché gets rolled out. Thats the thing really, too many clichés. I guessed the ending at the start. There was a predictable unpredictability if that makes sense. You've got all these characters with explosive problems, and one with apparently none. And I thought, what is the point of this character unless she's the unsuspecting suicide victim? And surely enough..

One thing I will say, and it is the saving grace of the film, is that it does NOT glamourise suicide. The suicide is very graphic and heart-breaking to watch. It is a powerful scene (regardless of how contrived it is)and one that dismisses suicide as the easy option. But the film is really not very imaginative and used stereotypes.

Not bad but certainly not groundbreaking OR worthy of a 17-minute standing ovation at Cannes???

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Beautiful Yet Disturbing, 7 September 2008

Author: Izzy_Duquette from Australia

At 2:37pm in a bathroom at an Adelaide highschool a student takes their own life and the different worlds of six teenagers are changed forever.

2:37 is a brutal, honest and breathtaking film centered on the pain of being a teenager. The film follows one day in the lives of six teenagers, all intertwined, all dealing with their own personal dramas. While there are a couple of stereotypes in the mix – the beautiful would-be popular girl dealing with body issues, the over-achiever obsessed with his grades, there are several horrors that are as far from main-stream as you can get, including a social outcast dealing with a brutal illness and a young girl trying to make sense of a devastating event in her past.

The movie is mixed with documentary-style interviews from the characters, which some viewers may find a little out of place in the otherwise seamless narrative. The pace is also a little slow, but it fits with the feel of the movie. The young Australian actors are all stars in their own right, in particular Theresa Palmer who's heartbreaking performance earned her an AFI nomination.

The film is very well shot, with terrific direction. Some scenes are a little hard to watch – in particular the five-minute-long suicide scene, but overall it is a film that leaves a big impact on its' viewers. It draws you in right from it's shocking opening scene and keeps you guessing as to which of the six main characters is going to be the one to end up in the bathroom. Ultimately, it's a beautiful made, but slightly disturbing look at teenage life.

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15 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
frighteningly real, 23 August 2006

Author: ndiva from Australia

2:37 succeeds admirably at showing us what Australian teenagers feel and don't say. These are the stories of real kids and I think we would be naive to think otherwise. The only new thing 2:37 really brings us is an Australian point of view. We often watch troubled American children but often fail to link the same problems to our own teens. Executed with clever and artful cinematography, I did however (upon immediate recognition of the disappointing final song) find the musical direction lacking in sophistication. I applaud the fabulous casting of this film. These are regular looking Aussie kids who invite plenty of sympathy because of this. Great performances all round and you can't top Gary Sweet, this film made me remember why sometimes high school sucked and unless you're squeamish, or you like to leave with warm and fuzzies, go and see 2:37.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Sorry, but this movie is a total scam, 22 February 2009

Author: dschmeding from Germany

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Honestly, Mr. Thalluri.... if you do a drama movie in a high-school setting following a bunch of teenagers through a school day and if you mess up the time-frame and jump back and forth... if you do that, you can't use the exact same visual story telling device of "Elephant" which is using a camera that is passing of from one character to the next and having scenes shown 3 times from different angles. You just can't do that because this is such a blunt rip off its hard to believe anyone gave this more than a 5 rating.

Where "Elephant" (which was released 3 years prior to this movie) uses school shootings (or to be exact the Columbine shooting) as the focal point for its script 2:37 uses teen suicide and seeing the reviews the shock value of that subject worked. Its the same slow story telling, a lot of dramatic piano music all leading to a finale you know from the beginning. At least the characters look like they tried hard to be somewhat different in that department. So you got a untypical gay guy who looks acts like a stoner/skater, a hunky lover-boy who can't deal with his gay side, brother and sister from a rich family who both got their very own problems and here comes the nose dive.

You also get a spoiled bulimic chick and one of the most ridiculous characters ever... a guy with medical conditions who wets his pants because of "2 urethra syndrome" who actually never heard of the invention of diapers but rather pisses his pants in the classroom and then change into new clothes and does so EVERY DAY! WOW, as hard as this movie tries to be realistic this is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. He gets beaten up on the toilet and is obviously ashamed of it but doesn't wipe the blood of his nose when going through the whole school with wet pants and a bleeding nose. Thats new-age realism directly leading to "the twist" and final character who turns out to be the suicide victim...

After watching the "very realistic" life of teenagers (one day including, incest-rape, teen pregnancy, bulimia, parental pressure for grades and appearance and the gay subject mentioned before, kind of like your "very realistic" daily soap... trying hard to be) we watch a girl die we met once in the beginning of this movie and who has no reason but that the guy she had a crush on left the room when she was talking to him (in a thoughtful piano playing sequence BTW, seen that somewhere before??). And it gets even better... before slitting her wrist in a painful long scene of "Yes" and "No" she asks 2-urethra-guy if he is OK, constantly smiling and then she cuts her wrist with scissors in a school toilet.

Now you got a movie that is a total rip-off of Elephant, fails with some really sloppy story telling (the whole rape-incest thing was pretty unbelievable too by the way) and people call this a shocker.

What the heck is going on?? Is all it takes to take some pseudo-dramatic music, boring story telling and adding a shock subject on top and people think there is a major deep message here?? I think Elephant is way overrated already but that movie was the original while this here is an obvious rip-off failing on many more levels. I have never ever seen a more brazen stealing of a whole movie concept in my life... and believe me I watched a hundred of horror movies so I know how low you can go there. This is a total let down in all departments... its nor realistic, its stolen, its damn slow and by all means I wonder whats more useless... another romantic suicide (many give this point to the movie which makes me wonder if they only watch Romeo+Juliet all day long because there is dozens of movies which deal with the subject in a clear non-romantic and MORE REALISTIC way) or this ridiculous set up... Come on! I am still trying to work out if 2-urethra-guy or the suicide itself is more unrealistic and ridiculous.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
I really don't get it......, 22 January 2008

Author: Mader45 from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I don't understand what is hard hitting about this movie! I don't understand why high school kids should watch this! I don't understand why this should have made me think about anything in the slightest!

*Spoiler*

When the un-noticed girl is on her way to commit suicide, was I the only person cheering her on? The cliché'd classical music, long tracking shots, melancholy emotion of the film by that stage had me in reversal to what was intended. I would have only been happy if she walked into the room and the entire cast was in there with her holding scissors to slit their wrists up.

Why?

Cause I went to high school.... and frankly im sick to death of seeing movie after movie in Australia with teenagers in it being solely based on terrible clichés. I've been waiting ages for a younger person to write a movie that im able to relate to and this stereotype driven piece of emo garbage is what I got instead. It was like a dark version of heartbreak high that needed a predictable ending.

Why are all teenagers in Aussie dramas depressed or have really weird problems that just aren't plausibly told?

On the plus side, this was funnier then 'Blurred'. And I needed a good laugh.

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