By Dexter "Box-Office" Reel
A quarter-century after two hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center's twin towers, killing almost 3,000 people, a new Netflix documentary makes the case that some horrors never settle into mere history, no matter how many years pass or how many classrooms now teach the date as a chapter in a textbook.
Turning Point: Generation 9/11 arrives for the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, carried out by al-Qaida under Osama bin Laden's direction. According to a review in The Guardian, the film weaves together original recordings from that day with present-day testimony from people who lost loved ones, and the effect, the reviewer writes, is one that "stop[s] time in its tracks."
The critic, who watched the towers fall on a conference-room television as a trainee lawyer in London, makes an honest admission that doubles as the film's thesis: distance, whether of geography or years, doesn't dull an event like this. It bends time around itself. For anyone who lived through it, September 11 remains less a date on a calendar than a permanent hinge in memory. For a younger audience who know it only from history class, the film's task is harder, and, per this review, it succeeds anyway.
The verdict, filtered through one critic's eyes: a documentary that treats grief as evidence, not decoration, no dramatic reenactments needed when the real recordings and real faces carry that much weight. We're relying here on a single review rather than a broad critical consensus, so treat the praise as one informed reaction, not a verified rave from the whole field. Still, on a weekend when the date itself demands reflection, a film that reportedly earns its gravity is worth the note.
Loved it, hated it, or wasted my afternoon, here's which.
— Compiled from reporting and review by The Guardian.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."