Our take
Though the “troubled teen industry” is a worthwhile topic, this miniseries gives it the same indistinguishable treatment as the rest of the other true crime documentaries out there. There’s the sensationalist music and the reductive interviews, which equate survivors to their trauma and nothing more. It’s hard not to compare this Max miniseries with Netflix’s The Program, which also recently came out. The latter is more personal since the survivors reclaim their stories and find creative ways to tell them. Though Teen Torture has more history, context, and a variety of interviews from across the country to back it up, those elements ultimately make the series seem more scattered and less urgent than it should be.
Streaming arrival
The story
Follows on-going efforts to expose America's "troubled teen" industry (TTI). For six decades and counting, this billion-dollar business has used what it calls "tough love" as a form of treatment despite numerous deaths, countless suicides, life-altering injuries, and instances of child sexual abuse. Until recently, nobody has been able to stop it. The series follows a recurring band of young survivors and whistleblowers and their harrowing first-hand accounts of extreme abuse and cult-like brainwashing at the hands of these programs, starting a social media firestorm in 2021.
This three-part miniseries interviews survivors of abusive youth treatment centers, which are still rampant and unregulated to this day.
The horrifying truths the survivors share should’ve been treated with more urgency and care.
Though it’s not the best one out there, it’s still a worthwhile documentary about a worthwhile topic.
The details
Who picked it
Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.
