The coming-of-age film is a familiar genre, but NB Mager takes on something far more daring in Run Amok, which recently screened as part of Sundance’s online program.
The film follows the firebrand freshman Meg (Alyssa Marvin), whose school is preparing a commemorative ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of a school shooting that, in just six minutes, claimed the lives of three students — including Meg’s mother, the school’s art teacher. When Meg hears about this ceremony after just discovering the concept of catharsis (“like an enema for your heart”), she convinces music teacher Mr. Shelby (Patrick Wilson) to let her participate in the event. What begins as being charged to play Amazing Grace on her harp, morphs into a mini-musical that unearths trauma still gripping the school, its staff, and its community.
Unlike most films that tackle this material, Run Amok stays firmly rooted in Meg’s point of view as she attempts to deconstruct what happened in order to translate it into musical form. Her relentless need not just to understand but to heal frustrates the adults around her — people who’ve been bleeding quietly for nearly a decade. This leads to musical reenactments set to Britney Spears’ “Hit Me.Baby One More Time,” and even Meg reaching out to the mother of the deceased shooter in search of answers. The tone is heightened, but deeply empathetic — a coming-of-age story for a generation raised on active shooter drills.
The film works both satirically and emotionally, thanks to a script that feels like Rushmore filtered through an ABC After School Special. Much of that success rests on Alyssa Marvin, who carries the film with striking confidence and vulnerability. She doesn’t just ask the hard questions — she feels their weight in her bones, and wants to heal not only herself but her community around her. That urgency plays beautifully against the weary stoicism of the adults around her, including an impressive cast with the Queen of the Coming of Age comedy – Molly Ringwald, Patrick Wilson, and Margaret Cho as the school principal. Rather than risk saying the wrong thing in front of the families and community, they’d rather this all just go away.
Run Amok is an ambitious and audacious little film that delivers laughs while refusing to shy away from the harder questions beneath them. It’s a delicate balance, but Mager pulls it off, keeping us firmly in Meg’s corner while giving voices to those too often sidelined — the children who endure these tragedies and the parents they leave behind. This combined with the “heroes” and “victims” of gun violence and those caught in the middle offers up a more honest, human portrait of a crisis too often flattened into headlines and soundbites. After all, it will be Meg’s generation that’s forced to fix this, since lawmakers today have repeatedly proven they value financial enrichment over addressing this epidemic.
