The reality of poverty is horrendous and obscene. I think those who have not experienced poverty are uncomfortable with seeing it, even if it is fictional. Children usually are the first casualty when grinding poverty finally consumes the entire family. Although I haven't read the book or watched the movie, the trailers look awfully familiar. I managed to get out of the poverty I experienced in my childhood. Looking at poverty is not supposed to make someone feel good or joyful. I probably won't go watch the movie. I don't think I could handle watching people survive the violence and abuse on-screen since I got to experience it and watch it as it takes down family and friends.

Children of poverty tend to be children of children of poverty. The parents who are abusers this generation were the abused of the last. It tends to get passed down. As with so many things, you tend to end up making the same errors that your parents made and their parents made until someone along the line breaks the cycle.

Poverty combined with abuse isn't pretty. Poverty isn't pretty in and of itself, but doesn't always include the coarseness and abuse that is part of this story. Our entire culture has become more coarse. More of what these impoverished people are suffering along with the poverty is being suffered by everyone. Poverty is lack of money. It doesn't have to be lack of dignity or humanity or gentleness. It has become more likely to be so, though.

What probably really scares the writer of the review is that she sees more of the coarseness and inhumanity and maltreatment coming into our culture. It isn't the poverty, it is the dehumanization that is so disturbing.