‘Gone Guys’ Documentary Spotlights the Struggles of Boys and Young Men

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For adolescent boys in rural Vermont, finding places to express themselves and be vulnerable can take many forms. For some, that looks like going to the gym. For others, it’s joining a Boy Scout troop. At Montpelier High School, it’s taking a “Healthy Masculinity” class.

As shown in a new Vermont-made film, these are just a few ways local young men are coping with the isolation that has led to a national trend of men falling behind — in educational, career and mental health outcomes alike. Gone Guys localizes the crisis, featuring interviews about male struggles with Vermont adolescents as well as the educators, mentors and programs seeking to uplift them. The 45-minute documentary is screening across the state this summer.

“What is happening to our boys? They’re dying from suicide, from opioids. They’re not doing well in school. They’re unmotivated, generally,” director Chad Ervin said. “What can we do to help this?”

As the father of a son in middle school — which he called a “critical age range” for male mental health — Ervin has a personal stake in the issues Gone Guys explores. The Montpelier director has worked as an editor on PBS’ “Frontline” as well as on documentaries such as 2023’s Join or Die, about the decline of American community. Ervin said that journalistic background has aided him in “looking at complicated problems and thinking about how you can take practical steps.”

To that end, Gone Guys digs into data that trend in “really troubling directions” for young men, said Lauren Curry, executive director of the Richard E. and Deborah L. Tarrant Foundation, a presenting partner on the film along with the Vermont Community Foundation. The film is full of stats that point to the need for systemic change.

For example, substance abuse, educational disengagement and mental health crises disproportionately affect men of color and men living in rural areas. Men are also more likely to have low grade point averages, engage in risk-taking behavior, and even die by accidental overdose or suicide.

That may be because educational patterns among men and women have flipped over the past 50 years: In 1970, there was a 13 percent gender gap in bachelor’s degrees, favoring men; by 2020, the gap had grown to 16 percent — this time, favoring women.

The filmmakers drew on the research of Richard Reeves, the author of 2022’s Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. Reeves, who visited the University of Vermont in 2024, is featured in the doc.

Gone Guys strives to offer solutions, Ervin said, highlighting changes that can be made on a community level. The film gives an inside look at support groups for male students, such as the “Healthy Masculinity” class in Montpelier and the “Men and Masculinities” program at UVM. It also features Dad Guild, a Vermont group that encourages male-identifying parents and their families to connect at gatherings ranging from Frisbee golf tournaments to educational events.

Building community with adolescent boys was also a critical part of making the film. Ervin said working with them was one of the most rewarding aspects of the production — it gave him the chance to have genuine conversations about the problems and stereotypes young people face.

“Men and young boys are better at expressing what they’re feeling and thinking when they’re doing things shoulder-to-shoulder, as opposed to face-to-face,” he explained. That translated to interviewing subjects while driving, walking, working in a garden or even cutting wood together.

While there may be no one-size-fits-all solution, Curry said she hopes audiences will walk away from the film with useful resources — and, ultimately, that Gone Guys will help people feel “a little less lonely.”

This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2025.

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