"It portrays a group of high-school kids going through the events of a shooting that happened at their school ten years ago. Led by Meg (Alyssa Marvin), who lost her mother in the massacre, they intend to create a musical commemorating the event. Scripts in hand, they walk through their school hallway, pointing out where each shooting happened and reenacting these moments, like a loose, early blocking run-through of their eventual performance."
"The attitude is mostly businesslike: Sober and attentive, Meg is primarily interested in the facts, in the sequence of events and the positions of the victims and the shooter. Some kids exaggerate their gestures; one does run away in genuine terror, but others crack jokes. It's hard to read any kind of specific emotional valence into this scene. These kids know of the shooting, but it was so long ago"
Run Amok opens with high-school students mapping a decade-old school shooting as they rehearse a commemorative musical. The students approach details clinically, focused on facts and staging more than emotion. The adults remain deeply traumatized: instructors display nervous aggressiveness and symbolic behaviors, like a woodworking teacher shooting squirrels to protect birds. Mr. Shelby, maimed in the massacre and haunted by guilt, supports Meg while trying to atone. Meg, who lost her mother and later learns she was present during the shooting, embodies a complex, muted grief that contrasts with the students' detached rehearsal.
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