Alright! The Kids Are All Right – Some of Them
The theme of the week seems to be family dynamics. I went to see The Kids are All Right and thoroughly enjoyed it. I laughed, I cried and mostly, I enjoyed watching a movie with more emphasis on character and relationships than pyrotechnics.
Watching the family dynamics in this modern alternative family situation reaffirmed the notion that – people are people. No matter what the family situation, we can’t seem to escape the trials and tribulations of parenting and growing up. I’m giving The Kids are All Right a thumbs up for entertainment, a heart for heart, a star for intellectual stimulation and a snort for comedic relief.
A day later, I watched Biography on A&E. The segment was on Rodney Dangerfield. To learn about Rodney Dangerfield’s childhood is a real heartbreak. Amazing that with all that baggage, he didn’t suicide. The biography is a real insight into how a traumatic childhood continues to play itself out over time and the difficulty involved in resolving deep emotional scars.
Watching The Kids are All Right and Rodney Dangerfield make me aware of the challenges presented to each and everyone of us when it comes to experiencing what is truly real in us.
Great Characters
Links of Interest
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Comments
2 responses to “More Family Dynamics”
Well once again, I can see I’m going to be in the minority when it comes to popular movies. I went to see this movie with high expectations because Annette Benning is one of my favorite actress’s and I like all the other characters too.
However, at the end of the movie I had a sad feeling for how they resolved (or more to the point, how they didn’t resolve) the issue of the father.
The father didn’t ask to be brought into the drama of their lives, but since they asked, he showed up with courage in a situation he never expected to happen. And when it did, he came to love those kids and also to fall in love with one of their mothers.
And yes, he should have resisted the attraction to her because she was married to Annette’s character, and because of that, what they did wasn’t right. But who of us can cast stones at someone who submits to strong urges?
After the Annette character told him he was an “Interloper” and to get his own family and slammed the door in his face, I kept waiting for that unfair outburst to be reconciled but it wasn’t. And then the movie was over.
The movie was true in the sense that people react with anger and self-rightousness and believe themselves justified in that anger, but it doesn’t make it right.
And it causes me to look at myself. When I notice error in others, I notice it in myself. What this movie taught me was to keep remembering that there is never an excuse for anger because we are one and we need to forgive ourselves instead of moving into anger when we think we are threatened.
Sharon
I, too, was disappointed in lack of resolution with the father, but was more satisfied with the way it ended than if they had tied everything up with a nice Hollywood Bow. The father had his own set of interesting dynamics and issues, didn’t he?