There are plenty of beautiful shots of the bridge, and a few shots of heartbreaking suicides. A camera crew spent the year 2004 filming the bridge during its public hours, and captured most of that year's suicides on film. But the movie mostly consists of interviews of the family and friends of some of the jumpers.
How others will see it. This is not a feel-good movie. It is not a good date movie. Don't show it to your kids. Don't show it to depressed people. It has its place, though, as a warning that small-scale tragedies happen regularly that snuff out the lives of those without hope. Socialists, psychologists, and psychiatrists may be able to piece together patterns from the interviews of those who were intimate with the jumpers.
How I felt about it. I am not doctor, nor do I play one on T.V. But the patterns are far from subtle. Most profiled jumpers were diagnosed as mentally ill before their suicides. One was schizophrenic, another was bipolar, another was depressed. None profiled were married or had children, and none had good jobs or were financially secure. The warning signs were there, and were known to their support network of friends and families. But these people were helpless, because they had their own lives and were unable to babysit a grown adult who had discussed suicide with them, often on an ongoing basis for years.
The film's pattern of jumpers, their sorry lives, and their powerless families continues on for the film's ninety minute running time. The exception is the rare jumper who lived. Once in free-fall, he decided he wanted to live after all. He put his feet together, landed feet-first, and beat the odds despite physical injuries that put him into a coma. His story has a purpose beyond its obvious drama: this is a suicide try that can cause a lot of physical pain. It may look romantic, it might be sensational, but it feels like a horrific car accident.
Cameramen filmed the Golden Gate Bridge every day for a year. They captured numerous suicides on film. Could they have prevented any of them? It is a valid question. But the answer is No. Thousands of pedestrians cross the bridge each day, and it takes only a few seconds for one of them to pull himself over the rail, and into the air. The cameramen are as helpless as the friends and family. The jumpers can't be blamed either, since they are usually mentally ill. There's only one obvious solution: improved guard rails on the bridge. No one jumps from the Empire State building anymore, because they can't.