by Travis Johnson
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Professor Willem Kuyken, Professor Vikram Patel, Professor Charles Nelson, Professor Theresa Betancourt, Professor Ann Masten, Dr Tom Insel, Professor Frank Oberklaid AM, Professor Maree Teesson AC
Intro:
… a decent enough film about an important topic
Hosted and directed by award-winning health journalist Shannon Harvey, who also produces with husband Julian Harvey, through their Spark Studios production shingle, Raising Superheroes is an impact documentary that shines a light on the mental health crisis currently afflicting young Australians.
This is new territory for Harvey, but at least somewhat adjacent to her previous documentary work; 2014’s The Connection followed her research into the mind-body connection following her diagnosis with an autoimmune disease, while 2020’s My Year of Living Mindfully saw her “put meditation to the test”, in the words of the official plot synopsis.
Raising Superheroes flows on from that, putting the focus of youth mental health in the face of, well, all this: climate change, the Covid pandemic, rising fascism, economic pressures, cyberbullying, and so on and so on. Citing a statistic that some 75% of children experience symptoms of depression, the film notes that while the issues seem overwhelming, some solutions or at least therapies are at hand. With a nod to, of all things, the old “Slip, Slop, Slap” campaign that saw skin cancer rates in Australia plummet, Raising Superheroes points at early intervention and care for traumatised children as the key to building mental resilience. And so, Harvey heads off to speak to a range of experts on the subject to support her thesis.
It’s important to note that Raising Superheroes is an impact documentary. It’s deliberately and obviously polemical, and it exists in pursuit of a stated agenda (and, to be fair, a positive and progressive agenda). It doesn’t exist in isolation; rather it’s one branch of a broader project, the 5% For Prevention campaign, which aims to boost the proportion of the federal health budget spent on preventing mental illness.
This is explicit in the film, which is ultimately a rallying cry for the project. But it means that Raising Superheroes is difficult to judge as a film – or, at least, it suffers when gauged solely against that criteria. It’s rough on a technical level in places, and at times seems to deliberately invoke amateurism as a signifier of authenticity, in much the same way TikTokkers insist on holding lapel mics. Aesthetically, it looks like a Today Tonight segment,
Yet, for all that, it is addressing an important and timely issue, and it’s hard not be moved and inspired by the stories of Professor Theresa Betancourt, who worked with former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, or Detroit community organiser Brandi Haggins, whose own early experiences with street violence motivate her. `
Ultimately, Raising Superheroes comes down on the side of community, communication, support, and prevention, and it’s hard to argue against such concepts (some will try, though – check your social media). It offers a call to arms and a path for activism for those who wish it – and that may be the key problem here, as such films often preach to the choir. Still, it’s a decent enough film about an important topic. There’s not much more to say about it than that.
