Coming Home — an intimate moment with folks we might avoid  

Coming Home — an intimate moment with folks we might avoid

 

by Paul Lefebvre

 

There was a time when, at the very mention of seeing a documentary film, people’s eyes would glaze over, as if they were emitting an inaudible groan.  But that is changing.  Thanks in part to the innovative work being done on television, such as Ken Burns’ series on the American Civil War or the latest HBO special on the life of the actress and activist Jane Fonda, documentary films are become more and more like reading a good biography or history written with the verve of a novel.

Coming Home, the latest documentary from the Kingdom’s own Bess O’Brien, lacks the scale and breadth of some grand, pivotal moment in the country’s history, but it more than makes up for it by providing its viewers with a moment of intimacy with people who most of us would likely avoid or ignore.  Coming Home is a documentary about how, as one of the film’s characters puts it, “a community has the power to change the way a person’s life can go.”

In the event you know nothing about it, Ms. O’Brien’s film is about the next stage in the lives of five people “who made some bad mistakes” and are trying to change their lives around after being released from jail.  To that end, it centers on a community program that is gaining traction in Vermont known as Circle of Support and Accountability (COSA), and the challenges involved in giving someone a second chance.

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