Daughter of Suicide on AllMovie

A very personal exploration of the effects of suicide, Daughter of Suicide is filmmaker Dempsey Rice's often devastating account of her mother's suicide and its continuing impact on the family she left behind. Rice's mother Bonnie was raised in Kentucky by parents who held more concern for their Christian ministry than their children. Her upbringing led Bonnie to suppress her own needs while listening to everyone else's, something that led her to pursue a career as a psychologist. She led a productive and creative life until the mid-1970s, when severe postpartum depression followed the birth of her second child. As Bonnie grew increasingly distraught, her marriage suffered, and her loved ones became irrevocably frightened after her first suicide attempt in 1980. Bonnie's irrational behavior only grew worse in the years that followed, until she finally ended her life in 1987. Rice uses interviews with her father and sister to provide insight into her mother's life and death, as well as home movies, photos, research on suicide and depression in general, and Bonnie's own journal entries.