Keep Sweet (2021) User Reviews

Unsettling

[agm-44038 · 5/10 · 29 June 2023]

The ending of this documentary kind of seems to support the Warren Jeffs faction! The documentarian began this project, wanting to know about lost boys and ended up falling in love with everyone he meets. So, I don't think it's a unbiased account. It really does seem to turn away from the Warren Jeffs of it all. It does seem sad that people were evicted from their places of business and homes, and it is curious as to why the trust board couldn't work with the people currently living there to try to come to an agreement they could all live with. The title alone seems to focus on the ideology that being sweet is an OK thing and doesn't focus on the restrictions and abuse that people injured in the sector. There is mention of it, there is illusions to it, but I think the documentarian could've been a bit better about really truly showing the dark secrets?

Suspiciously low rating...are FLDS members rating this low?

[shae_leigh · 10/10 · 11 June 2022]

I specifically made an account to review this well after seeing the low rating. This was an excellent modern documentary on the FLDS & Warren Jeffs. I would have been interested in more than 4 episodes! I am so sad for the underaged girls and really all the people hurt and still hurting from this.

NOT the Netflix show

[cornallyp · 1/10 · 11 June 2022]

Other reviewers seem to be mixing this up with the Netflix show Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey which is excellent.

This is not that, this is based on the filmmaker taking a stance in favour of the cult and ignoring the horrific abuse.

Recommended. Terrifying but very informative.

[slizethmejiasandoval · 10/10 · 11 June 2022]

I'm not sure why the rating is so low (a bit suspicious). It is a great documentary that makes us see that, even in the 21st century, there are still such serious human rights violations. I am very grateful to the brave survivors for making us see the atrocities that exist when people decide to use faith for their own benefit.

They lost me at "Ethnic Cleansing"

[MovieShrink7 · 3/10 · 3 December 2023]

Let's start by saying that this is for the 2021 documentary FILM. It is not for the brilliant 2022 Netflix documentary SERIES. That is an eye opening and incredible watch that is well done. This attempt is disjointed and a little tone deaf. The filmmaker started the project ten years earlier with the goal of focusing on FLDS "Lost Boys" and the lack of direction is evident in the final product. While it's interesting to hear from current FLDS members (notably: none of the other docs out there that I have found include that point of view) it makes the entire point muddled and messy. If a viewer came into this film cold, with no prior information about FLDS, one might think they just had quirky beliefs and were being unfairly persecuted but that is just not true. It is absolutely possible that some people grew up in FLDS and had purely positive experiences there but that does not negate the very real abuses that occurred since Warren Jeffs became "prophet". This documentary paints the remaining members in a sympathetic light; a light they deserve as who can say how they might be if they had grown up in the same environment? The problem is not the sympathy; it's that the documentary seems to want to be willingly ignorant of the underlying poison within FLDS. A documentary cannot be balanced when you sanitize the facts.

The big sticking point is the reaction to the evictions taking place. All the residents are allowed to literally take back their homes (as they had transferred ownership to the church) as long as they agreed to pay taxes and signed a two page form. Despite this low threshold, many have refused to do it because it violates their religion. One of the outsiders that has chosen to help current FLDS members was appalled at the evictions and called it "ethnic cleansing". As much as it is okay to sympathize with the leftover members, it is not okay to refer to a simple request to follow the law as "ethnic cleansing". It's borderline disrespectful and once again is an example of choosing to ignore the horrors this "culture" allowed, produced, and (in some ways) condoned.

Interesting...

[lenasimone-32723 · 2/10 · 29 June 2023]

I did prefer the Netflix one for sure, this one I thought was an interesting contrast because it shows just how indoctrinated some women in this society are, that they can't and won't believe the accusations being made about warren jeffs. It's horrific tbh, but eye-opening when you think about why some women choose to stay or choose not to support the girls that have left.

At first I didn't think it was trying to validate the opinions those women have actually, especially because they do still show the material demonstrating how much of a monster jeffs is.

But then they started getting into the evictions and the consequences they were facing for everything that's gone on, and it was a little too sympathetic in my opinion. Especially when they started referring to it as a kind of "ethnic cleansing" I was like oh nah, you've lose me now sorry.

I'm watching this in disbelief

[catarinasuicide · 3/10 · 1 April 2024]

I am not sure I can finish this, they're interviewing these women that still fully believe in Warren Jeff. I kid you not, one of these women said "Uncle Warren just wanted to protect us" "the only thing he did that got some people agitated was to make us follow the rules" ... I am genuinely in disbelief. Way too much focus on the happy times and too little focus on this man having relations with children! I don't know if I should pity these women or blame them for letting these awful things happen right in front of their eyes and being brainwashed enough to sit here now and tell us how it was a magical time in their lives, like huuuh??????