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family drama

Hillbilly Elegy – Family Turmoil

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“Where we come from is who we are, but we choose every day who we become.”

J. D. Vance’s bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy has been brought to the screen by Ron Howard. The memoir recounted Vance’s childhood in the Ohio Rust Belt, where he was raised by a mother struggling with addiction and his grandparents who came from rural Appalachia. After spending time in the Marines, Vance went on to college, then Yale Law School. The film carries the story arc, but comes up short on the kind of insight that Vance brought to the book.

HILLBILLY ELEGY: (L to R) Haley Bennett (“Lindsay”), Gabriel Basso (J.D. Vance), Amy Adams (“Bev”). Photo Cr. Lacey Terrell/NETFLIX © 2020

The film focuses on the troubled family relationship. As Vance (played as adult by Gabriel Basso and as a youth by Owen Asztolos) is preparing for interviews for a summer internship at a prestigious law firm (a job he needs to be able to continue law school), he gets a call from his sister that their mother Bev (Amy Adams) is hospitalized because of a heroin overdose. He has to make a long drive from New Haven to Ohio, deal with trying to get his mother in to rehab, then drive back in hopes of making an important meeting.

As the trip plays out, we see flashbacks to his youth. His mother, while loving, constantly battled substance abuse. The more nurturing relationship in his life was his grandmother, Memaw (Glenn Close). Memaw was a no-nonsense woman who embodies the values of hard work and honesty that Vance, in his memoir, associates with the rural Appalachian community. After one of Bev’s breakdowns, J.D. moves in with Memaw, who pushes him to excel in school.

HILLBILLY ELEGY: (L to R) Haley Bennett (“Lindsay”), Glenn Close (“Mamaw”),Owen Asztalos (“Young J.D. Vance”). Photo Cr. Lacey Terrell/NETFLIX © 2020

The film becomes not so much a story of those values as a story about a family struggling with addiction. It becomes about J.D.’s mixed feelings about his love for his family and the struggle to succeed in another world. That was all a part of the book, but the book became such a success because it offered much more.

Films by their nature have a great deal of voyeurism. We are watching other people’s lives from a distance. The same is true of memoirs and novels. In his memoir, Vance took us into the white working-class culture that he grew up in. He does not look down at it. He values it. He shows us the trials, frustrations, and the values that have led to alienation. The voyeurism of the memoir seemed to lessen the distance the reader might have felt in thinking about Appalachia and the working-class. The film boils down to a less helpful voyeurism. We watch a family in its pain, but we are always a bit removed.

HILLBILLY ELEGY: (L to R) Glenn Close (“Mamaw”), Amy Adams (“Bev”). Photo Cr. Lacey Terrell/NETFLIX © 2020

When the book came out in 2016 (a few months before the election of President Trump), it served as a kind of bridge between two segments of our society. Vance has a foot in both worlds. He knows just how easy it is to settle into despair. But he also exemplifies the ability to advance through a strong work ethic. Early in the film we see J.D. panicking at a formal dinner over all the silverware. But we can tell that this is a world that he is growing into. That social and political insight were the strength of the memoir, but is missing from the film.

Hillbilly Elegy is playing in select theaters (where open). It will be available on Netflix on November 24.

For audio of our conversation with Ron Howard, click here.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

Sorry We Missed You: When the Work Ethic Doesn’t Work

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“I’ve got to go to work. I have not got a choice.”

We are told that if we work hard, we will find success. For many the “gig economy” seems to be the way they can take control of their lives and find the financial success they need. Ken Loach’s film Sorry We Missed You provides a much darker view. What started off as great hope of a brighter future devolves into a world of desperation.

Ricky (Kris Hitchen) has bounced between jobs since the 2008 economic downturn. He had been in construction. As the film opens, he is interviewing for a job as a delivery driver. It seems exactly what he wants. He will be his own boss, he is told. He won’t be paid wages, he’ll get fees. With hard work he can begin to bring home enough money to get his family back in their own home. But to really make money, he’ll need his own van.

His wife Abby (Debbie Honeywood) is a home health aid. She has a car she uses to go from client to client. But to get Ricky a van, they sell her car, making her rely on buses to make her appointments. The two of them put in long hours—12 to 14 hours a day. Meanwhile their children, sixteen year-old Seb (Rhys Stone) and tweener Liza Jane (Katie Proctor) try to get by. Seb is dark and brooding. He cuts school and paints graffiti. He knows how to push Ricky’s buttons—and does so frequently. Liza Jane strives to be a peacemaker in the home, but what a burden that can be.

When problems arise, Ricky discovers that the “self-employment” he thought his job entailed was really an illusion. There is no flexibility. He must be there every day, or arrange for a replacement. Not doing so results in not just lost pay, but a £100/day fine. Abby also has little flexibility, in part because she is compassionate and caring. When she must do extra work, it is not compensated. As the stresses of work and within the family continue to grow and compound on each other, the characters find themselves in a spiral of despair.

The film is set in Newcastle, as was Loach’s previous film I, Daniel Blake (which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes). It is not a sequel, but could well be seen as a companion piece. Both deal with the trials of the working class trying to get by in an economy that doesn’t care about people, but about bottom lines. Whereas I, Daniel Blake deals with the working-class struggle with a good dose of humor and eventually shows the power of the human spirit in midst of a soul-deadening bureaucracy, Sorry We Missed You is much darker and pessimistic. As the hope that drives Ricky to start this new job slowly evaporates, the stresses on everyone in the family may destroy their loving relationships. And the film does not allow us to walk away with a sense that things will get better.

This is meant to be a troubling film. It calls into question some of the foundational beliefs of our society. As we watch Ricky and Abby work long hours in hope of achieving some financial improvement, we discover that the supposed promise of the work ethic is deceptive. They not only fail to gain on their goals, they become deeper and deeper in debt. That debt is not only financial, but also emotional and spiritual. The work ethic that we see in play here does not elevate workers, but erodes their dignity and threatens their humanity.

Note: This film comes with subtitles, even though it is in the English language. The Northern England dialect can be difficult to understand, so the subtitles are very welcome.

Photos courtesy of Zeitgeist Films in Association with Kino Lorber

What They Had – Family Struggle of Dementia

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Dementia can be a nightmare for families. It’s not just watching a loved one becoming lost as their memory deteriorates. It requires making hard choices that can put family members at odds with each other. What They Had is a look inside a family that is struggling to deal with a wife and mother as she slips deeper and deeper into dementia.

After her mother Ruth (Blythe Danner) wanders away on Christmas Eve, Bridget (Hilary Swank) gets a call from her brother Nick (Michael Shannon) to come home to Chicago to help deal with the problem. Nick, who still lives near his parents has seen Ruth’s ongoing decline. He has been involved in her care. Nick is adamant that the time has come for Ruth to be moved into “memory care”. Her husband Bert (Robert Forster) wants nothing to do with moving her from their home. He will take care of her, he says.

Michael Shannon stars as “Nick”, Taissa Farmiga as “Emma”, Hilary Swank as “Bridget” and Robert Forster as “Bert” in Elizabeth Chomko’s WHAT THEY HAD, a Bleecker Street release. Credit: Bleecker Street

When Bridget arrives, she becomes the referee between father and son. She tries to find middle ground, but it may not be possible. Nick has everything planned, but it is Bridget who holds power of attorney. As the family struggles over how to deal with Ruth, other side issues naturally arise to both illuminate and complicate things: the hostility in Nick and Bert’s difficult relationship, Bridget’s loneliness within her marriage, and Bridget’s lack of understanding her own daughter Emma (Taissa Farmiga).

But this is also a story of a family in which love is real. Even though Bert spends a great deal of time trying to tell his children that there are no bells and whistles in love, he and Ruth clearly had a relationship that was held together by a deep, romantic relationship. And that relationship is central to understanding why Bert is so adamant about keeping Ruth with him. Even in the midst of fighting, the family maintains its bonds between each other. Bridget and Nick have their own sibling resentments, but still we know they want the best for each other and for the family as a whole.

Blythe Danner (left) stars as “Ruth” and Robert Forster (right) stars as “Bert” in Elizabeth Chomko’s WHAT THEY HAD, a Bleecker Street release.

I found this to be the most accurate portrayal of dementia and its attendant issues of any I’ve seen on film. (At least, it very accurately mirrored my experience with my mother sliding into dementia.) Writer/director Elizabeth Chomko based the story on her grandmother’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease. It is at times filled with pathos, and at other times quite humorous, just as is the case with watching someone you love who has dementia.

And while our family did not have as dramatic confrontations as this family, we did have differences of opinion about what would be right at any particular time. It is the family struggle that is the real focus of What They Had, rather than dementia itself. In this too Chomko brings an eye and ear for reality. She also uses the other difficulties in her character’s lives to bring out the emotional and sometimes spiritual struggle the family undergoes. An example is a set of scenes with mother and daughter in bed together, one with Ruth and Bridget and one with Bridget and Emma. Without words, these two shots give us a visual reference to what is going on in Bridget’s life.

Blythe Danner and Hilary Swank star as Ruth and Bridget Keller in WHAT THEY HAD, a Bleecker Street release. Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street

What They Had offers us a chance to see that love and pain often travel together. This family suffers as Ruth loses her memories. But they are also bound by a love that continues through the pain and even the anger it dredges up. This is often the reality not only in dealing with dementia, but also with the many other trials that life brings our way.

 

Back to Burgundy – Finding Family Again

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“When I was little, every morning I’d look out the window, and I’d think, ‘Every morning it changes.’

“Yeah, when I was a kid I thought every day was different, and it would always be like that. It would always keep changing. But then I realized that, here, nothing ever changes.”

The dynamic of change and lack of change is explored in the family drama Back to Burgundy (French title: Ce Qui Nous Lie, ‘What Binds Us”). It is the story of the reunion of three siblings on their family’s vineyard. There is much that is the same as it has always been, but also much that changes day by day.

Oldest son Jean (Pio Marmaï), whose thoughts open this review, left home years ago to see the world. When he learns his father is dying, he returns home when his sister Juliette (Ana Girardot) now runs their vineyards. Their brother Jérémie (Françoise Civil) has married into one of the premiere winemaking families in the area. Naturally, this is a time of both joy and turmoil. There is love between these people, but there are also resentments that have grown through the years of Jean’s absence.

After their father’s death the three must figure out what to do with the family’s estate, given the large tax bill they are facing. As they work together through the year-round vineyard activities, they must negotiate not only the business aspects, but more importantly their relationships must go through much of the same kinds of changes that the vineyards face.

The film makes great use of the Burgundy countryside and the various aspects of winemaking. We see the vineyards through various seasons. We watch as the siblings taste grapes and debate which day will be the best for harvest, and later what grapes to combine into the wine. But all this visual celebration of wine also serves as a metaphor of the relationship the siblings must reestablish. As the film says at one point, “Love is like wine. It needs time. It needs to ferment.”

As the three siblings (and later Jean’s wife and son) interact, they slowly come to find peace with both their pasts and the present. For that to happen, they must recognize the parts of themselves and their relationships that are immutable, and also to discover the newness that can come each day—just as Jean noticed as a child looking out his window.

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films

What Will People Say – Culture Clash

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What Will People Say was one of my favorite films at AFIFest this year. I wasn’t alone in my estimation of the work; it also won the Audience Award in the New Auteurs section. It is a powerful and engaging film in which two different value systems collide within the life of a teenager as she grows up with connection to two cultures.

Sixteen year old Nisha (Maria Mozhdah) is the dutiful daughter of Pakistani immigrants to Norway. Her family observes the ways of her homeland, and participates in the broader Pakistani community. But having grown up in the European culture, she is also a very normal Norwegian teenager. Her friends are Norwegian. She sneaks in and out of her bedroom window at night. One night her father discovers her boyfriend in her bedroom. He beats the boy. Police are called, and Nisha is taken into a shelter while she and her family try to deal with the situation.

Her father and brother then kidnap her and take her to Pakistan to live with family there and better learn the traditional values. She struggles to fit into this culture that she really doesn’t understand. She begins to adapt, but soon her teenage behavior causes shame to her Pakistani family which forces them to call her father to come get her. She is caught in the midst of trying to fit into cultural ideals that she really doesn’t understand or accept. But this is her family. These are people who love her and have raised her. But how can they tolerate behavior that goes against all they have ever known? And how can she adapt to such a world when she has been raised in a western ethos?

I’m sure it makes a difference that I’m watching this with western eyes. (And that it is made with a western perspective.) But even though the Pakistani ethos may seem harsh from our perspective, it is treated with the respect that it deserves. When Nisha’s parents worry about how others will think of them as a result of Nisha’s actions, it is because honor is so important in their culture. Even after years of living in Norway, her mother is embarrassed when her husband makes her dance with him with friends present in their home. Such mores are hard to escape. And in fact, because of what Nisha has done, the family is being ostracized by other Pakistanis. And even though they are hurt and angry, Nisha’s parents continue to strive to do what they feel is best for Nisha and her future. The connection between Nisha and her father is front and center in showing the loving, yet often hostile relationship.

The conflict arises when the western value of individual freedom (especially as it plays out in adolescence) is added to the mix. Nisha has been raised within this culture as well as her family’s culture. This is her natural environment. And in reality, part of the reason for her parents coming to Europe was for such freedom and the opportunity it provides for their children. It is not only Nisha who is conflicted over these values. Her father also has this struggle. But the gap between her first generation father and 1.5 generation Nisha gives each a different perspective.

The real question posed by the film is if these two different value structures—each valid within their cultures—can coexist. Is it possible for Nisha to live the life her parents want for her and the life that she has been told can be hers from the European culture? And if she must choose, what will the cost be? This is an issued faced by many immigrants from various cultures as then adapt to new homelands. It can also be a concern for families in any culture when there are changing value systems—and let’s face it, the world and its values are constantly shifting. Parents of each generation struggle to teach children the values they were raised with that may now seem passé.

It is hard to imagine an ending that is satisfactory for all involved, and the film doesn’t find one. Rather it sets in motion even more questions of how these lives will play out in a changing world. Perhaps freedom is not an ultimate good, any more than honor is. Yet both are worthy values to cultivate in people and in society.

 

Lady Bird – Discovering a Best Self

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“I wish I could live through something.”

The senior year of high school, the cusp of adulthood, is the setting for Lady Bird, the coming-of-age comic drama from writer/director Greta Gerwig. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Rowan) is at that point where she is not satisfied with her life. Her hometown of Sacramento seems to be the epitome of nowhere. Her family, which is struggling financially, is somewhat embarrassing to her. Even her image of herself isn’t what she wants it to be, and so she has chosen her own name.

Lady Bird’s senior year (2002-3) is almost a holding pattern for her desire to leave and live the kind of life she believes exists in other places. She wants to go to New York for college, even though her grades are mediocre and her family can’t afford much. Along the way there is experimentation with acting, boyfriends. There is typical teenage heartbreak. But mostly there is conflict with her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).

Marion is very pragmatic. She hunts for bargains. She works two shifts. She tries to push Lady Bird out of her own self-absorption. There are times she and Lady Bird bond as mothers and daughters often do, but they also irritate and repel each other as mothers and daughters often do. Marion often seems hard or angry, but she is always loving. Lady Bird only senses the animosity, leading her at one point to say “I wish that you liked me.” But she fails to see just how much Marion and Lady Bird’s father (Tracy Letts) do for her. Lady Bird is often cruel in her relationship with her mother. Never in big ways, but she tends to wound with a thousand small cuts.

There is a great sense of reality to this relationship, in not small part because of the reality of the characters. Ronan’s portrayal of Lady Bird is not about a great teenage angst, just the day-to-day struggle to understand who she is and wants to be. Metcalf’s Marion is not a saccharine best friend or a dominating harridan. She is struggling with her own understandings of Lady Bird and her desires for Lady Bird’s future.

There is also a spiritual dimension to Lady Bird’s story. Because she attends a Catholic high school (although apparently not Catholic herself), there are scenes that take place in religious services, and priests and nuns play roles in her life and growth. The religious aspect is always treated with respect. The religious characters are just as human as everyone else in the story. The most prominent is Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith), the school’s principal who provides a touch of grace in nearly every scene she is in.  And although Lady Bird may not seem to be outwardly religious, the environment that the church has provided through her time at school, provides her with a place to re-center herself when she discovers life away from home is not as different as she had hoped.

This is one of those films that has me wanting to go back to Ecclesiastes. Certainly Lady Bird thinks “There is nothing new under the Sun” (at least in Sacramento). She is busy looking for meaning and happiness in wealth, or sex, or fame, as did Qoheleth. And like Ecclesiastes the discoveries of meaning are found within.

I saw this film on Thanksgiving weekend, and it was amazingly appropriate. So much of our time is spent being oblivious to the many things we have because we so often focus on the things we do not have. That is very much Lady Bird’s experience with the world. Sacrament seems to her to be a place to escape from, even though when she wrote an essay about it, Sister Sarah Joan says it shows she loves this place. She sees her family as an embarrassment, but also a place of love. She thinks she has never really experienced any thing of import, but each little thing adds up to a life time. Which brings us to the quote I use to open this review. It is one of the first lines in the film. By the end, we know (and Lady Bird is discovering) that she has been living through a great deal. That is an important first step in appreciating the world and the people around us.

Photos courtesy of A24.

Summer 1993 – A Child’s Loss of Innocence

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As Summer 1993 opens, children are playing in the street. One of them looks at six-year-old Frida (Laia Artegas), and asks, “Why aren’t you crying?” Is that part of the game or does Frida have reason to cry? As viewers we don’t yet know why she should cry, but when we find out we may spend much of the film wondering that ourselves.

It is the story of a young girl whose parents have died of AIDS. She is being uprooted from her home in Barcelona to live with an aunt, uncle, and younger cousin in the Catalonian countryside. It is a drastic change in her life. Her family is loving and supportive, but this is not yet her home. In some ways she is a pawn in the family tensions between her religious grandmother and her parent’s generation that has moved away from the church. But even though her family loves her, she frequently presses the limits of acceptable behavior—perhaps acting out what is going on inside her.

The generational divide over religion is one of the forces at work within Frida. Her grandmother encourages her to say the Lord’s Prayer daily and to pray to her mother who is watching over her. But as time passes, she senses that her mother is increasingly absent. Frida faces not just the grief of losing a parent, but is having to deal with the first inkling that the faith her grandparents taught her will not sustain her.

The film is based on writer-director Carla Simón’s own childhood. It is a series of vignettes, as memory often is, but there is a structure that allows us to see Frida’s struggle to come to grips with the grief within her, as well as the new family and cultural world she is in.

The rural setting makes for a beautiful backdrop that emphasizes Frida’s innocence. The sunny and seemingly carefree setting also is a contrast to the pain that Frida holds within.

This is a child’s story of a summer that marks a transition from one life to another. The depth of her loss has not really taken hold. Realizing the reality and finality of death is one of those moments when innocence is chipped away. There are moments of fun, but in much of the film Frida seems quite impassive, as if she refuses to let the emotions within her find the surface. The summer is the setting in which Frida must grow to find her new life and come to grips with the past.

Summer 1993 is Spain’s official submission for Oscar consideration.

Photos courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories

Milton’s Secret – The Alchemy of Now

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In Milton’s Secret, eleven year old Milton (William Ainscough) seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. His parents (Mia Kirshner and David Sutcliff) are constantly worried about business and finances. He’s bullied by his neighbor. He describes his life as living on “Planet Fear.” He and a friend sneak into an abandoned house to do alchemy experiments, seeking to create some gold that will solve his problems. But the transformation his world needs will require some help.miltons-secretday-3sept_23_2015-iden-ford_81

The film opens with a montage of angry and frustrated people during the opening credits. That sets the world as one without much happiness. Certainly Milton’s family doesn’t seem to have much happiness in it. But then his grandfather (Donald Sutherland) comes to visit. Grandpa Howard seems to have evolved into something of an aging hippie. (He sips herbal tea, listens to 60s music, started riding a motorcycle, and is dating his Zumba instructor.) His daughter is not really pleased with the way he is acting recently. But he is at peace with himself and the world around him. While everyone is away at work and school, Grandpa starts pulling out the dead plants in the back yard and re-landscaping it. At the same time he begins the process of transforming the lives of the family.

The family has been suffering the caustic effects of worry. Milton feels alone. His parents’ relationship is strained. Failure seems to be close at hand on many fronts. But Grandpa Howard urges Milton to get away from worrying about what has happened or will happen and appreciate the moment he is in. That philosophy is the key ingredient in the personal alchemy that Grandpa teaches Milton—and Milton goes on to teach to others in his world.

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The way the philosophy is presented may have something of a Buddhist feel to it, but it is an idea that is also to be found in the Gospels. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches about worrying about what will happen (Matthew 6:25-34). Jesus tells us to look to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and how God provides for them. Rather than worrying about tomorrow, we are to seek God’s Kingdom and righteousness. For many people that may be one of the most difficult of Jesus’ teachings to follow.

Photos courtesy of Momentum Pictures

Louder Than Bombs – Finding Ways Through Grief

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In Louder than Bombs, when noted war photographer Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert) dies on the eve of an exhibition honoring her work, her husband Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and two sons, Jonah and Conrad (Jesse Eisenberg and Devin Druid), must deal with their grief. Each has a different approach to the difficult time. Each must come to terms with the way their relationship with her evolved.

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For Gene, it is a time of struggling to connect with Conrad, who has taken refuge in video games. Jonah, a new father, takes leave from his career and new family to catalogue his mother’s photos. There are many ways that these characters are all hiding from the grief that they must deal with—and also from the fears of what life may become for them. Their memories are sometimes painful and at other times joyous. They will discover secrets about one another and about their mother. Eventually they must choose on how they will deal with their grief and how to move from this time of death and darkness to a way back to life.

One of the issues that all must deal with is that Isabelle was somewhat detached from them all. She would be gone for long periods to war zones, where she would be in danger, leaving her family behind to worry. Even when we see her pictures of women in those war zones, the faces seem blank, as if reflecting Isabelle. We can’t tell if faces reflect boredom, anger, or oppression. It is that same kind of detachment that seems to be growing within Jonah. With a newborn baby at home, he spends his time at his father’s house dealing with the massive number of his mother’s pictures. He seems to be avoiding his own role as husband and father, just as his mother may have been avoiding her role with the family.

Grief is one of the universal themes that film can address. As we watch the Reed family deal with the grief in their life, we feel a connection with them because we have been there as well. Even in relationships that may not have been all we might wish they had been, the loss of one who holds an important place in our lives is a struggle that is so difficult that many may look for ways to avoid it. But in time, it must be faced.

Photos courtesy of The Orchard.