A Review Of 2016 Slamdance Film “Peanut Gallery”

By : Alystar McKenneh-O’Neil

“Peanut Gallery” is a documentary about revisiting and reexamining the death of a child in a family.

Even though the director Molly Gandour was there when her sister died, her parents dealt with the death of their eldest daughter Aimee, Molly’s sister, in a very congenial and dignified way. Icing over the entire thing so as not to upset Molly perhaps, but they left a bandage on the sore for too long.

Since none of the family has had a “real” moment in front of each other, Molly was left in suspended animation as many brothers and sisters of dying siblings are. While parents are consoled, siblings are often overlooked leaving them in a sort of suspended grief and disbelief time warp.

Molly returns, camera in hand to her family sixteen years later and asks the questions she needed answers to years ago when her sister died.She takes a look at her sister from an adult’s point of view, she reexamines her own feelings and is now privy to her parents adult feelings that they did not dare share with little Molly when Aimee died.

It can be a bit dry sometimes with too many kitchen table, dinner scenes and sofa scenes. But Molly’s parents were genuine, even in her father’s inability to expose his pain in a way that his wife and Molly hoped he would, we could feel his pain.