Hello Herman
| Hello Herman | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michelle Danner |
| Produced by |
Ed Cha Michelle Danner Brian Drillinger Alexandra Guarnieri |
| Written by | John Buffalo Mailer |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Jeff Beal |
| Cinematography | Sandra Valde-Hansen |
| Edited by | Christian Kinnard |
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Production
company |
All in Films
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| Distributed by |
Gravitas Ventures Freestyle Releasing |
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Release date
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Running time
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85 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | $8,437 |
Hello, Herman is an American drama written by John Buffalo Mailer. Michelle Danner directed the film version, starring Norman Reedus, Garrett Backstrom, Rob Estes and Martha Higareda, which appeared at the 16th Annual Hollywood Film Festival in October 2012.
Set in the not so distant future, in the United States, sixteen-year-old Herman Howards makes a fateful decision. He enters his suburban school and kills thirty nine students, two teachers, and a police officer. Just before his arrest he emails his idol, famous journalist Lax Morales, sending him clips of the shootings captured with Herman's own digital camera. In the clips Herman tells Lax, "I want to tell my story on your show". Lax, haunted by his own past, is now face to face with Herman. The movie explores why and how a massacre like this can happen in our society, desensitizing in America, youth violence and bullying, the impact the media has on our individual quest for fame, and ultimately our need for connection.
Hello Herman holds a 13% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 6 reviews, with a rating average of 4/10.Metacritic has given the film a weighted average score of 27/100, based on 5 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
Sam Adams of Time Out New York said that the most fitting punishment for Hello Herman was to simply ignore its existence: "it barely tries to offer insight into its much-debated subject, content to rip the scab off an ever-fresh wound for the sake of controversy."The Los Angeles Times's Amy Nicholson wrote about the incompetence of the director: "we're not sure what director Michelle Danner, who plays Herman's defensive mother in an uncredited role, wants us to get besides a reminder that angry boys act out for a host of half-defined reasons."The Village Voice's Rob Staeger stated that "the dialogue is all surface: emotions are laid out on the autopsy table for the audience to dissect and analyze, but rarely feel."The New York Times's Jeannette Catsoulis finds that "pointing at everything and elucidating nothing, Hello Herman arrives freighted with the anti-bullying agenda of its director, Michelle Danner." In contrast to other critics, Sam Kashner of Vanity Fair said that “Hello Herman is a powerful and important work, a darkly brilliant tone poem about America’s tango with violence and fame. Herman will get under your skin. He may even follow you home. What is certain is you won’t soon forget him.”
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