I Am Vanessa Guillen

Good movie!

Good movie!

source: I Am Vanessa Guillen

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful Vanessa Guillen was a young Latin American woman, whose dreams did not conform with traditional gender norms. She wanted to make her name either as a boxer, or in the military, and went with the latter. Making her family extremely proud, Vanessa settled in well at the Fort Hood military compound for a while, but quickly grew disillusioned, and complained of sexual harassment and abuse by her fellow cadets. She was later found murdered in a shallow ditch, spurring her mother Gloria, and sisters Mayra and Lupe into a ferocious battle for justice, and exposing a top down culture of corruption at FH, whilst effecting a change in the law. If their general original content is somewhat hit and miss, Netflix can generally be relied on to produce a solid, insightful documentary, and this, the feature length directorial debut of director Christy Wegener, would be one such example. A shocking, unbelievable true life tale of institutional corruption and evil, it shines a light on a marginalised voice, in the shape of a young woman from a minority background, and the failings and betrayal of an organisation meant to protect her. Of shattered dreams and shattered hearts, finding the strength to rise up to demand justice and change. No longer able to fight her own corner, Vanessa's legacy rests in the hands of her mother and two sisters, who are (without generalising) a typically impassioned Latin American family, dealt the most shattering of blows. You can feel the fire raging within them, as they chase their campaign around the company, rallying legal experts, lawmakers and even (then) President Trump in to making Vanessa's life matter. This was a young woman whose only crime was to pursue a dream and make her loved ones proud, and it's truly shocking how the apparently most honourable, and most deserving of respect, people actually behave when forced in to a corner and told to justify their actions, as we've seen in other recent documentaries such as Athlete A. It really makes you feel uncomfortable. There are some people who sadly end up having more of an impact in death than they do in life, which things like the death of George Floyd (whatever you thought of him) proven, and someone like Vanessa Guillen has the power to do just the same thing, and maybe even better. ****

What a story... there were beautiful words in the documentary that impressed me. The lawyer's word was "They're afraid of anyone who can solve this case" and that little girl said "I haven't had time to mourn" and her Mother said "God lent me money and took her with her"... so sad there was definitely a reason for Venessa's death. They made their voices heard thanks to their strong sisters. I was proud of the little girl. At the age of 16, he is shouting with a megaphone in assemblies before he can reach maturity and experience his adolescence. And as they say "This feeling will never go away" it's totally a joke that the troop base didn't give any explanation and tried to look for the missing soldier 2 months later! They literally made fun of the family. And ignored reports of harassment. Also, why didn't they reveal the name of the abuser? They knew and knowingly went on TV and said "it has nothing to do with harassment". Totally sad. I always say America's legal system sucks.

This documentary shouldn't have even been made. As a victim of sexual harassment and assault this was told all wrong. As a parent if your child came to you and told you they had been sexually assaulted wouldn't you as a parent go to where your child was an find out answers or even tell someone in the government? Why did they wait so long to tell anyone? And also that lawyer was just a horrible lawyer. No matter where you go anyone can be sexually assaulted or harassed even at a job. So why shut down a base? Just put stricter rules. Horrible and not good at all. I know there will be a lot of people who agree with this because it's just sad and horrible.

Not at all what I expected was hoping for something insightful and was met with disappointment but then again this is Netflix. It focuses too much of her family and not enough about what happened to her. The mother is very annoying acting like she knew this was going to happen before she went to the army. This was a rare instance. The only people to blame are the people who committed the murder not some giant entity that is the army and the ridiculous solution to close a multi billion dollar installation like fort hood? Not likely. No explanation about how she was murdered and who were the ones responsible they were just brushed to the side Netflix needs to stick to facts and not emotional and irrational feelings the mother in this documentary needs a reality check.

Sadly, Vanessa is still being victimized by being exploited under the pretense of "sexual harassment" in the military. Not one time during the coverage of this case in 2020 until now is or was there a discussion of the actual perpetrators of the crime and their motive but instead focused on Vanessa being "sexually harassed" by someone other then the actual murderer who was not even the harasser. The actual murder of Vanessa was swept under the rug by the state run media in favor of creating and building on the "sexual harassment" of women in the military by the media. Sadly, Vanessa's family is capitalizing and joined in the exploitation of their own daughter and sister under false pretenses. Sexual harassment didn't kill Vanessa. Sexual harassment had nothing to with her murder. And we'll probably never know why she was murdered because the accomplice, Cecily Aguilar, will probably never go to trial because of a plea agreement.

I never cry watching anything and this film brought me to my knees. The filmmakers expertly navigate the complex issue of sexual trauma in the armed forces (US) through one heartbreaking case - Vanessa Guillen. The 1st half of the film is gut-wrenching as Vanessa goes missing, the military stonewalls, the Guillen family desperately search for Vanessa and answers. Vanessa's found (won't fully spoil) but her family shift gears and decides to take on the military and the dysfunctional culture, policies that enable pervasive corruption and sexual trauma to take place frequently. Fort Hood in Texas is the base Vanessa was living/working at and it had decades of insane levels of corruption - everything from a prostitution ring, missing soldiers, mass shootings, human and gun smuggling and it just continued... and might still, but Vanessa's family worked to minimize the corrupt practices but more work is needed. This film should help. The film is well constructed. The story works - it's complicated. There is a lot of old footage, news footage, but some gritty and beautiful cinematography too. Seems like a hard film to make and it's done well.

As a retired military member and knowing how inconsistent the military justice system is, I was looking for some compelling insight into what happened to one of our Uniformed Sisters. Instead, I found myself constantly asking how all of this ties into Vanessa's murder. I continued to watch to the end, hoping that the last 30 minutes would provide some groundbreaking connection between the murder and all of the efforts made by the family in reforming military law. In this documentary, Vanessa and the facts surrounding her death were overshadowed by a loose connection to sexual harassment/assault in the military, and we see her serving as a figurehead for a cause while her grieving family strives to have her name attached to a law bill that is passing through the system to be approved. We hear very little of the suspect other than he was a troubled coworker who murdered her and then kills himself before being captured. We were made aware of an accomplice girlfriend who was still awaiting trial. We understood that Vanessa was very liked and loved, and had sexual harassment complaints against a supervisor that went unaddressed. I am actually angered by this film that, in essence, is supposed to be a feel-good justice-served type of documentary. When you get past the story of the grieving family and their journey to make a legislative change, you realize that the main issues are missed and never discussed. The holes in the system leading to Vanessa's demise are never patched. What was the motive for her murder (other sources state it was a cover up for an affair)? What type of soldier was Robinson, other than one who disregards COVID protocols? Why were they both on duty that day when home-quarantine was apparently in effect for Ft Hood? Who else was there that day that were potential witnesses? Where did the murder take place? Why did it take so long for Ft Hood to respond to her disappearance (seriously, within 30 minutes I had people who came to my overseas off-base residence to find me when I failed to answer a 2am phone call)? What else was known about the accomplice and her relationship with Robinson? If you don't have the answers to those types of questions (even if it is a military cover-up), then you don't have a documentary about what happened to Vanessa Guillen. Without the vague connection to sexual harassment, her story unfortunately dies too. Perhaps Netflix should have waited longer for the trial of the accomplice or more information released from the murder investigation before releasing this film. As is, this film appears to be a filler, akin to a great YouTuber who puts out a half-baked video because they need to release content on-schedule. IMO, Vanessa and her family deserves better. In the end, Vanessa and her family still has not received justice and the passing of the sexual harassment reform to military law seems like a method of pacification at its highest level. There is still much more to this story that will soon become public knowledge, and releasing a part 2 of this film is just not going to happen.