Konterr Brilliant and touching

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Scroobious Watch this.This is the kind of documentary that couldn't have been made, or at least not as well, before the advent of camcorders. The story is basically that of a battered family, ending in murder. It raises questions of what murder and justifiable homicide are... and leaves the answer to the viewer.The most haunting aspects of this film are the homemade footage in which the question is perpetually forced upon the victim/murderer... Wendy? Wendy? The subject is forced, both by her attacker and the filmmaker to look into the camera and decide to answer either honestly or dishonestly.The version I saw was the HBO documentary called Every F*ing Day, and that title seems much more appropriate. This movie gives a strange new meaning to familial bonds and love, and it leaves you hurting to find out how anyone can come out of such a situation intact.

Antioed This is a fantastic film...so sad, so wrong and so *real*.Everyone knows a documentary tells a true story. To me, a *good* documentary tells a true story that evokes a strong emotional response from the viewer. This one resonated strongly with me.How easy it is for those who have not *lived through* extreme domestic violence to judge Wendy for staying with Aaron. They have not experienced the constant humiliation, torment and manipulation at the hands of an abuser. Abusers like Aaron are not dumb - they are *psychotic* and often masters of intimidation and manipulation. I should know, I grew up with one. Perhaps after having all your teeth knocked or broken out you might understand; or maybe the constant threats on your life and the lives of those you love if you leave? We all say "well I don't understand - I would just leave him"...of course we don't understand - we are not Wendy; we didn't marry that guy at eighteen and have kids with him. We can never know what it's like until we walk a mile in her shoes...the point of the film. I thought the ending was executed brilliantly by the director...brutally real...frustrating. It left me in total consternation with our so-called "justice" system. Wendy and Randy should not have been imprisoned...they should be in therapy.

lorie helen A friend asked me to see this film at SXSW. I walked into the theater knowing nothing and she was right, the story is incredibly powerful. The way the story is told made me pay attention, and as the details of the Wendy's life came into focus I was shocked by the story. Following the film one member of the audience even mentioned that he had to go for a long walk. That about summed up my feelings. I wanted to feel bad for everything I had just seen, but I was left with some inkling of hope that things will be better. I have the utmost admiration for Wendy and total contempt at the deficiencies in our justice system. A great film about a very sad and common problem in today's society.

JustCuriosity One Minute to Nine had its North American Premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. The film tells the heartbreaking story of Wendy Maldonado and how decades of domestic abuse finally led her to kill her abusive husband. The film was well-received by an audience deeply sympathetic to her predicament.The film is beautifully edited. The use of the family's home videos to supplement the 5-day footage with some historical background is powerful. The story that they tell is emotionally devastating, but it feels like half a story that raises more questions that it answers. Much more could have been done if they had chosen to interview the lawyers, the law enforcement officials, the judge, and experts of domestic violence to build a larger context around Wendy's specific case.In some ways, the inherent drama of the story of Wendy and her children is more compelling and disturbing than the film Tommy Davis has made. Davis set out to make a film about how a family copes with the prospect that a loved one is being sent to prison in a few days. They apparently, almost accidentally, stumbled on Wendy Maldonado and her case which raises all sorts of legal and moral questions about domestic violence. They succeeded in telling that limited story that they set out to tell, but film doesn't seem to go far nearly far enough in exploring the societal implications of this tragedy which ultimately seems more important than the relatively narrow project that they present to the audience.By telling her story they open up many important political, social and cultural questions, which they chose not to systematically address. Their narrow focus allows them to focus on the brief window of time leading up to her incarceration and the family history that led up to it, but they choose not to explore the deeper questions of the failure of the system that led up to this tragedy.Why didn't the police arrest her husband for assault and domestic abuse during the proceeding 2 decades of abuse? Couldn't she have left him and sought a restraining order? Why didn't her family and friends help her to get out of this situation? Where were the social service agencies? Why did she get such a long prison sentence? What sort of legal representation did she have that advised her to take the plea bargain offered her? Is there an effort to get her a pardon or clemency? Decades after the "Burning Bed" made this sort of occurrence a national shame, how often does this still happen in the US and how can it be stopped? While it is always easy to criticize documentary film makers for the film that they didn't make, in this case, the story cries out for a deeper examination and what they have done feels like it has opened up a door, but failed to walk through it. The film is compelling and important for what it shows us; however, it also feels narrow and unsatisfactory, because there is so much more that we need to know to try to understand the broader social and political implications of why Wendy is sitting in prison cell today.