You've got it so good. Don't believe that your lot in life is a happy-go-lucky cakewalk through the streets of Jubilationville? Then watch The Betrayal—about a family of twelve Laotian refugees who suffered more pain every day for two decades than all your teenage anxiety combined.

The story begins during the Vietnam War, in Laos, where the soil is the color of beets and bombs drop by the thousands. The US targeted the country for a secret air war, and many Laotians fought alongside Americans. After the US left, the resurging communist regime persecuted those soldiers.

The father of Thavi Phrasavath, the documentary’s primary narrator and central figure, was one of the soldiers who fought for the US. Did the US thank him for his sacrifice and offer him protection from the commies? No, they forgot all about daddy, and he was swept into a hard-labor camp and forced to eat “rice filled with termite shit.” It is the first of many betrayals in The Betrayal.

Did the neighbors who had been at the family’s side before the war care? No, they ostracized the family. And when the mother, Orady Phrasavath, fled the country, did she wait for her 16-year-old and three-year-old daughters to join the rest of her seven children on a half-sinking boat that crossed the Mekong River? Nope, she left them behind. It gets worse—so much worse. The family, now down to nine, end up in Brooklyn, where bloody Asian gang warfare rules the (overcrowded) roost and the kids hate their mom, even though she becomes a beggar to feed them. The husband returns, briefly, only to make them all feel worse, and, later, the mother—the virtuous hero of the whole thing—is stuck living in suburban New Jersey. Fuckitty, fuck, fuck, fuck on a Laotian fuckstick.

The Betrayal’s strength lies in three places: A) its unexpected intimacy and footage documenting the family over 23 years; B) Laos, we tend to forget it’s been through hell for America; and C) It reminds you that, man, life sure is good in America (if you are not a betrayed Laotian refugee). Plus, it’s playing at the Grand Illusion, which, if you have to commit yourself to a couple hours of tear-duct-piercing nonfiction, is the coziest place to coddle your grief.

(The Betrayal shows for the next week at the Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St., March 13 — 19, daily at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., additional shows on Saturdays and Sunday at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.)