ScreenFish

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Family

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Little Shell, Big Love

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For the first time in a while, there seems to be a lot for families to see in theatres. Between Minions, Lightyearand, arguably, Jurassic World, there’s a lot of frenetic action and crazy special effects that are designed to draw eyeballs to the multiplex.

But the best family film of the year is probably the least likely.

Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a delightful film that tells the story of an adorable knick-knack and his search for family. Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate), one-inch-tall shell with a single googly-eye, lives with his Grandmother as the sole survivors of a tragedy that saw his family disappear into the night. When a documentary director rents their home as an AirBnB, he cannot help but make Marcel his next subject. But, when the video goes viral online, Marcel begins to hope that these simple videos might lead to him finding the family that he lost and loves so dearly.

Told in documentary style, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On may be the tale of one tiny trinket’s journey to find his family but it could it feels like it’s everyone’s story. As stop-motion animation brings the characters to life, Marcel becomes a soulful tale that speaks directly to the heart of all ages. There’s a charming inexperience about Marcel yet he contains a certain sardonic wisdom. Although he approaches the world with childlike innocence, he is also responsible, caregiving and intelligent. 

Similarly, the film has an authenticity and beauty about it as it approaches its subject with respect and joy. Admittedly, it may seem odd to refer to the character as a ‘subject’ as the film is clearly fictional. But there’s something so real about Marcel. 

Fueled by creativity, joy and heart, Marcel is a film that calls the young trinket to adventure. However, he has suffered a great loss and abandonment. Reeling from the loss of his family, Marcel wants desperately to be reunited with those who left him behind (even if it was unintentionally). He is young and feels the loss deeply. Now, with only himself and his grandmother remaining, he yearns for community. 

And Marcel is very much a film about the nature of community. 

However, rather than simply acknowledging that we need relationships, Marcel explores what it means to truly mine the depths of those connections. This is best exemplified between Marcel and his relationship with filmmaker Dean. Wanting to remain the unobstructed observer to Marcel’s life, Dean desperately wishes to remain off camera. But that’s not what Marcel wants. 

Marcel wants a friend. 

As he shares the stories about his life, he can’t understand why Dean will not share stories of his own. Eventually though, Marcel manages to crack Dean’s shell and gets him to open up. Suddenly, what began as a relationship between filmmaker and subject becomes a deep friendship. You see, Marcel doesn’t nearly want to be around people. He wants to people in his life that he can invest in emotionally (and can invest in him). Even in his youth, Marcel understands that real love can only happen when everyone lets down their guard to truly care for one another. 

That’s an awfully mature understanding of relationships for a googly-eyed shell.

While Marcel the Shell with Shoes On may not draw the attention of children at a time of Minions and Lightyears, the sweetness of the film cannot be underrated or underestimated. With one loving googly-eye, Marcel penetrates the heart and remind us of the need we have for authentic community so that we may deal with the pain storms that inevitably comes in life. On the surface, Marcel may appear to be an insignificant (and inanimate) trinket. 

But this tiny knick-knack has a lot to teach us about what it means to love.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is available in theatres on Friday, June 10th, 2022

The Phantom of the Open – Losing with style

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“No one can say you didn’t try.”

I’m not a fan of watching or playing golf, but I am in awe of those who can play at the professional level. That’s because I’m absolutely awful at it. Craig Roberts’s The Phantom of the Open is the story of a novice who tries to play at the highest level of the golf world. Based on the true story of the man who was known as the worst golfer in the world, this film is a testament to being willing to keep at something, even when failure seems inevitable. Perhaps it’s not winning that matters, but doing your best—even if your best is nowhere near good.

Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) is a crane operator from Barrow-in-Furness. It’s 1976 and the nationalizing of the shipyards may put his job at risk. When he learns that the British Open golf tournament has a prize of £10,000, he decides that he’ll enter and the money will take care of his family. Of course, Maurice has never played golf, so he gets some books and clubs and practices mostly on the beach, since he’s not a member of the golf club and couldn’t afford green fees if he were. (Although he does sneak on the course from time to time.)

He fills out the application for the Open, and through his ineptitude in even knowing what the questions mean, it is approved. So he heads to a qualifying round. He plays the worst round in the history of the open, shooting 121, 49 strokes over par. (This record still stands, and probably will forever.) The guardians of golf are appalled and ban him from clubs throughout Britain. But he becomes something of a folk hero when all this becomes known.

Maurice is determined that if they say it’s an open tournament, that he should be included. He continued to try to enter with names like Gerald Hoppy, Count Manfred von Hoffmenstal, and Arnold Palmtree, with elaborate disguises.

The film is more than just a humorous story of wrong-headed determination. It is also the story of a loving family that is caught up in Maurice’s obsession. It is the love story of Maurice and his wife Jean (Sally Hawkins), who stands behind him throughout his eccentric fixation, even though it will never bring them money. He also has twin sons who dream to be professional disco dancers. They follow their father’s example of letting their passion guide them. But his eldest son, who has been to college and now works in the offices of the shipyard is embarrassed by his father’s antics and tries to distance himself, which isn’t easy with a name like Flitcroft.

What makes Maurice such a hero, both to the public and to viewers is that most of us are not the greatest in the world at what we do. There are a lot more people who play golf like Maurice than like the pros. Not being good at it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it. My wife and I have taken up bridge. Sometimes we do well. Sometimes we don’t. We usually play with people at our level, but sometimes we play with people who have played for decades. We keep at it because we enjoy it, even when we make dumb mistakes.

Eventually, Maurice discovers that he has become an example and inspiration for people worldwide who will never win a tournament. Even the guardians of the game come to understand that golf is not always about winning or even playing well.  As Maurice said in an interview at one point, “For every winner of a tournament, there are 499 losers.” The lesson Maurice brings us through this story is that we need to enjoy what we do and not worry about being the best. Nearly everyone spends their lives as part of the 499. It’s not really that bad of a way to live.

The Phantom of the Open is in general release.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Belfast – Hometown memories

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“There are no roads to Shangri-la from our parts of Belfast.”

In Belfast, Kenneth Branagh, who wrote and directed, creates a fictionalized version of his childhood. It is a film built on the nostalgia of youth with a background of the violence of the sectarian struggles of Northern Ireland. It is a blend of an homage to the city of his birth, a paean to family, and a memorial to the lives changed and lost in that time. (The closing dedication of the film is “For those who stayed, for those who left, and for those who were lost.”)

Jude Hill stars as “Buddy” in director Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

Buddy (Jude Hill), a nine year old boy, lives with his parents (Caitíona Balfe and Jamie Dornan) and brother in a predominantly Protestant neighborhood in 1969. His Pa works as a joiner on projects in England, coming home for occasional weekends. His Ma keeps things running at home, dealing with the debt they’ve accumulated. The family has lived their lives on that street. He is surrounded by cousins and his grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds). It is a family filled with love, even if there are rough patches to get through. It seems like a wonderful place.

The film opens with an idyllic day in the street, with the children running and playing in various ways. There are the joyous sounds of song and laughter. But then suddenly a mob appears with rocks and Molotov cocktails, and starts destroying the neighborhood. The scene quickly becomes chaotic with frightened parents and children trying to get to safety. Soon the street is walled off. Vigilantes patrol the streets. One young man demands that everyone must contribute “cash or commitment” to the Protestant cause. Buddy’s Pa wants nothing to do with the divisive situation. Instead, he is trying to convince Ma that they should emigrate—bringing brochures for Sydney and Vancouver. In time, Pa gets an offer that would have them move to England permanently.

Caitriona Balfe (left) stars as “Ma” and Jamie Dornan (right) stars as “Pa” in director Sir Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

But this is all told through Buddy’s eyes. He overhears these discussions about leaving Belfast, but wants nothing to do with the idea. All he knows (and all Ma has known) is these few blocks. He also sees the world through the films he watches at the cinema and on TV. The films on TV are often classic westerns. We see as he watches The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon. High Noon seems especially appropriate because it is a story of leaving to avoid violence or standing up to that violence. It is very much the situation that Buddy sees Pa facing. And in a key scene we see Pa as Billy sees him: the marshal facing an evil mob.

The film has an interesting look: a darker, richer version of black and white than we are used to. There are also splashes of color when Buddy goes to the cinema to see One Million Years, B.C. and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We see the memories of that time and place as a mixture of light and dark. It is the unreal world of the cinema that is full of color. The film is also filled with the songs of another Belfast native, Van Morrison.

(L to R) Jamie Dornan as “Pa”, Ciarán Hinds as “Pop”, Jude Hill as “Buddy”, and Judi Dench as “Granny” in director Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

There is an interesting sign at the end of the street Buddy lives on. Painted on the side of a house row it reads, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” It comes from 1 Timothy 1:15 (AV). The presence of those words in this film is both a reminder and a critique of the religious foundations of The Troubles. The film doesn’t identify either side as “sinners”. However, we understand that Jesus came to save them all—both Catholic and Protestants.

Yet in spite of all that is going on, for Buddy, this is the place he loves—filled with people he loves—and will always love. Even after leaving to a different life, this is the place, even with all the difficulties, that has defined him. It’s taken Branaugh fifty years to find a way to tell his story this way.

(L to R) Caitriona Balfe as “Ma”, Jamie Dornan as “Pa”, Judi Dench as “Granny”, Jude Hill as “Buddy”, and Lewis McAskie as “Will” in director Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

Belfast is in general release.

Photos courtesy of Focus Features.

The Magnificent Meyersons – Wandering Wisdom

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“Sometimes, I wish God would just reach down and give the world a big old shake, you know?”

One day. One family. And it all gets shaken up a bit. Evan Oppenheimer’s The Magnificent Meyersons is a peripatetic search for understanding what it means to live in a world that may or may not have a god, in which right and wrong may or may not be relative, in which the future and the past may or may not hold the answers. And it’s a comedy (sort of).

We wander through the streets of New York along with four upper middle class adult siblings: Daphne (Jackie Burns), the older daughter, who is struggling with not being quite fulfilled as a mother, wife, or at work; Roland (Ian Kahn), the older son, who is a confident businessman, but perhaps a bit overprotective of his daughter; Daniel (Daniel Eric Gold), the younger son, a rabbinical student who may or may not have faith; and Susie (Shoshannah Stern), the younger daughter, who is deaf and seeking to make her way as a realtor. There are also interludes involving their mother (Kate Mulgrew) and memories of their absent father (Richard Kind).

Note that the term “peripatetic” means to walk around, to wander. As the day progresses, each of the siblings sit or stroll through the city talking to friends or family about any variety of things. The subjects are just as wandering as the people in the film: the existence of God, what makes man [sic] unique among the animals, what it means to be successful, what makes us happy, and if the past can be forgiven.

There is a philosophical bent to this film similar to what is found in the biblical book Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes, the author (often referred to as Qoheleth) ponders the meaning of life and what makes life worth living. Qoheleth is also a bit peripatetic. He wanders through various approaches in search of the answers to his questions. The four siblings, along with the parents to a lesser extent, all have different understandings of life. The film and all the talking are not so much about finding the answers as it is about all the questions. That too is a bit like Ecclesiastes.

Because the discussions are so diverse, there are many interesting things said along the way. There is an ontological proof of God set side by side with an ontological disproof. At another point, Roland says, “You know what makes man unique? He’s the only animal who can’t take care of himself.” When Daphne admits to being “selfish, vain, and lazy”, her husband concurs, and adds, “like everybody else”. Perhaps the deepest wisdom expressed is “Everything matters”.

The theme line of Ecclesiastes is “Vanity of vanities! All is Vanity.” That refers to the ephemeral nature of life. That concept is also central to the musings of the characters in The Magnificent Meyersons. As they all try in their own way to deal with the life, there is an understanding that things are constantly changing. But how we deal with all those changes can open new ways for us to live in vain lives.

The Magnificent Meyerson is playing in limited theatrical release and on virtual cinema.

Photos courtesy of Argot Pictures.

My Wonderful Wanda – Win-Wins?

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“This is a family matter.”

Bettina Oberli’s My Wonderful Wanda is about family—and about the ways families become intertwined without planning to. It also serves as a bit of social commentary of the relationship of the haves and have nots of society.

Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) is a Polish caregiver who has come to a lakeside Swiss home to care for Josef Wegmeister-Gloor as he recovers from a stroke. Wanda comes for three month stents while leaving her children at home with her parents. This is perceived (at least by the Wegmeister-Gloors) as a win-win. They get inexpensive care for their husband and father; Wanda makes more money than she could at home. But it is also a strain on Wanda’s family in Poland.

The Swiss family has two adult children with their own foibles. Gregi has been groomed (against his will) to take over the family business, but prefers birds (mostly stuffed). He’s also a bit in love with Wanda. Sophie is married to a lawyer, but is unsatisfied with her life. Elsa, the family matriarch, is controlling, but often in ways that seem very kind. Wanda is skilled at negotiating the various personalities and is especially good at making Josef happy.

When Wanda becomes pregnant, it raises a number of issues in both families. How does this affect inheritance? Is Wanda just trying to extort money from the family? What truths have been hidden through the years that must now be addressed?

The film is a bit uneven in its movement back and forth between comedy and drama, but it does create an interesting look at what makes up family. Even though the Polish and Swiss families are very different in outlook, Wanda has managed to bring them together, even if in an adversarial way. Each family is concerned with its own well being, but also with how Wanda’s child will be incorporated in each.

The rub comes when the child comes to be seen as a commodity. There are solutions to the problem that are proposed that seem like everyone benefits, but as with the idea that the use of cheap Polish labor is “win-win”, it fails to take in the personal cost that these solutions create.

In the end, it is Wanda who must struggle against all the attitudes of both families to decide what will become of her child. And in that decision it may be that many other issues will find new solutions as well.

My Wonderful Wanda is in theaters and available via virtual cinema.

Photos courtesy of Zodiac Pictures

5.13 The Mystical Science of DUMBO

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You’ve seen a horsefly. You’ve seen a dragonfly. You may have seen a house fly… but you’ve never seen an elephant fly… in live action that is. With the release of DUMBO, Disney continues it’s string of live-action remakes of it’s own animated properties (the first of in the next 4 months alone). Directed by Tim Burton and starring Colin Farrell, Danny Devito and Michael Keaton, the film is offers a different spin on the material but does it still carry the same endearing charm as the original? ScreenFish veterans Shelley McVea and Allen Forrest return to talk about family, the merging of science and mysticism and power within the film.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic, Alexa (via Stitcher), Spotify or Soundcloud! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts or Google Play!

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

5.13 DumboDownload

Thanks Shelley and Allen for joining us!

Shoplifters – A Twisted Family Tale

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Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Shoplifters is a part of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s examination of family’s place within society. This is a topic he has looked at from various angles in other films, notably Like Father, Like Son; Our Little Sister; Nobody Knows; and I Wish. (I recommend them all.) He always brings a bit of a twist into the idea of family, leaving us to consider our own views.

In Shoplifters, we see what seems to be a fairly traditional family: father, mother, grandmother, a daughter on the verge of adulthood, and a young son. The family lives in near poverty conditions. The father works occasionally and the mother has a low paying job. The grandmother gets a pension. But to make ends meet, they do petty crimes, especially shoplifting. On the way home from one of their “shopping” sprees, the father Osamu and his son Aki see a five year-old girl who seems to have been abandoned. They take her home with the idea of feeding her, but mother Nobuyu notice evidence of abuse. They decide to keep the child with them. When the parents don’t report her missing for some time, it seems the decision was right.

We may think this family is immoral with its focus on theft. They justify it to themselves by saying that something that hasn’t been bought doesn’t really belong to anyone. We know that is not true, but it helps them in their difficult situation. Soon, Aki is teaching the girl how to steal. When a shopkeeper spots her, he tells Aki to not make her do that (implying that he’s been aware of Aki’s practices all along.)

But there is also a moral sense that they exhibit—especially in taking in this girl who can offer nothing in return. The love that is evident in the family is shared with this stranger who they have rescued from a dangerous place.

As with all of Kore-eda’s films, Shoplifter provides us with very human characters that are easy for us to care for. We know this family struggles and that their actions are less than admirable, but because of the love they share and the happiness they find in one another, we sense that in many ways they are a family that we would like to be a part of. But in time the family bonds are to be severely tested, and perhaps irrevocably broken. It may cause us to question not their lives, but the society that has put them in this position.

As they get used to the girl as a part of their family, they reflect a bit about the idea of picking one’s family rather than just having it be about biology. Those thoughts keep coming back as we learn just how this family came together. Soon we come to realize that Kore-eda has again brought us a family that is not as simple as we assumed. It is here that we might want to give thought about our own definition of family. The society has given us an idea of what a family should be, but is it really clear cut? In recent years, the functional definition of family has undergone many transitions. This film gives us a new perspective to consider our own idea of what it means to be a family.

Shoplifters is Japan’s official entry for Oscar consideration as Best Foreign Language Film.

Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Beautiful Boy – Love in the Time of Addiction

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Addiction can tear apart families and ruin lives. Often the bonds of love lead people to try to help in whatever way they can. But those bonds can be fragile. Beautiful Boy is the story of a family that had to deal over a period of years with an addict who just couldn’t seem to be able to break away from his dependency. The film is based on two memoirs by father and son: Beautiful Boy by journalist David Sheff and Tweak by Nic Sheff.

Oakley Bull as Daisy Sheff, Maura Tierney as Karen Babour, Timothée Chalamet as Nic Sheff, Christian Convery as Jasper Sheff, and Steve Carell as David Scheff star in BEAUTIFUL BOY

David (Steve Carell) and Nic (Timothée Chalamet) are a happy and loving father and son. Nic is about to leave for college, but decides to take some time off first. The family is well off and there are firm bonds with Nic’s stepmother Karen (Maura Tierney) and young siblings. Soon, it is discovered that Nic is addicted to crystal meth. The rest of the film chronicles Nic’s and the family’s struggle with that addiction. It takes place over a period of years and many rehabs, relapses, promises, and deceptions. At times Nic is close to death, but that fact in itself is not enough for him to overcome his addiction.

Because the film is based on the two memoirs, it becomes essentially a father and son movie. Although there is also a good deal of interaction involving Nic’s siblings, stepmother, and birthmother (Amy Ryan). The relationship between David and Nic is the driving force of the story. David would do anything to help Nic. But as the story progresses he learns that there is really nothing that he can do to help Nic conquer this demon—except to love him. That is not said lightly or as saccharine. To love Nic in the midst of his addiction is a challenge. How does one continue to love someone who lies to you, steals from you, and deceives you year after year? Even when David turns down Nic’s pleas for “help”, we can see it is evidence of David’s real love for Nic.

Maura Tierney as Karen Barbour and Steve Carell as David Scheff star in BEAUTIFUL BOY

Screenwriters Luke Davies and Felix von Groeningen (who also directs) have made a seamless story of the two perspectives. It never seems like just David’s story or just Nic’s story. The two stories are not just different viewpoints, but a whole that reflects the bond between father and son—a love that runs so deep that even when it seems it must be beyond salvaging, it continues to hold them together in some way.

Timothée Chalamet as Nic Sheff and Steve Carell as David Scheff star in BEAUTIFUL BOY

It must be said that this is a painful movie to watch. There is a raw emotional honesty to all the relationships in the film. Emotion is a key element of the story. At one point David is doing everything he can to intellectually understand addiction. But Nic’s addiction has a very emotional center to it. It is only by entering into the emotions within the relationship that we understand just how painful this is for all involved.

Photos courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Incredibles 2: Together We Rise

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It’s been a while.

The goal of a film critic is to encourage people to go and see high quality movies while steering people away from titles that aren’t very good. To do this, the critic watches a film, then dissects it like an expert surgeon, analyzing it for plot holes, characterization, quality of CGI, music selection, theme, and at least a hundred additional items.  With so many variables, a film can receive vastly different reviews depending on the reviewer.  And to make things even more interesting, theater-goers may feel differently than the critic when the credits roll.

In the case of director Brad Bird’s latest film Incredibles 2, I believe the two groups will agree the film is a fantastic way to spend a couple hours in an air-conditioned theater.  Whether I2 holds up to fourteen years of waiting will depend on your personal perspective.

If you recall, the end of The Incredibles found the Parr family—burly Bob (Craig T Nelson), Stretch-Armstrong-like Helen (Holly Hunter), teenager Violet (Sarah Vowell), lightning-fast Dash (Huck Milner), and baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile)—preparing to take on a burrowing villain called the Underminer.  In Incredibles 2, we finally get to see how the battle turns out.

It’s not pretty. At least half the town is destroyed, including cars, freeway overpasses, buildings, and at least one character’s emotional stability. As a result, the Supers are forced underground yet again (and the Parr family into living out of a hotel room). But there may be some hope in the form of Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk), a multi-billionaire who has been fascinated with superheroes his entire life (even singing their theme songs). He meets Bob, Helen, and Frozone (Samuel L Jackson) in order to reveal a plan to get Supers back on the good side of the general public. But in a surprise to Bob, Winston wants Helen to be the face of positive public perception, leaving him to stay home and take care of the kids.

Helen Parr (AKA Elastigirl) meets some new Supers.

Helen, in her Elastigirl outfit, immediately has to deal with a runaway monorail in New Urbem that showcases her talents as well as the new motorcycle Winston’s sister and uber-talented Evelyn (Catherine Keener) designed.  Her success leads to more Supers coming out of hiding, including Void (Sophia Bush), a superfan of Helen’s who creates interdimensional portals out of thin air. But there’s a more sinister villain than the Underminer on the loose—one that always seems to be a step ahead of Helen.  The Screenslaver hypnotizes people who are looking at video screens into obeying their commands, threatening to destroy Supers once and for all.  Helen thinks she’s got the villain figured out—but is sorely incorrect.

Meanwhile, Bob struggles mightily to be an effective full-time dad. Dash can’t figure out his math homework; Violet is an emotional mess regarding a boy; and Jack-Jack keeps Bob up at all hours while harboring multiple superpowers that are beginning to manifest themselves.  It all exhausts Bob, leaving him gruff and unshaven, and in one of the craziest scenes in the film, asleep while Jack-Jack combats his new arch enemy—a territorial raccoon.  Thankfully, the kids intervene in the form of Frozone and a diminutive yet pugnacious fashion designer named Edna Mode (Brad Bird himself).

In order to defeat the Screenslaver, it’s going to take more than Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl.  As a result, the final portion of the film is an action-packed spectacle I won’t spoil for you.  When the credits rolled, the crowd applauded and cheered loudly.

In the end, I felt Incredibles 2 was just as good as the original film.  Michael Giacchino’s score delivered the right amount of gravitas while keeping pace with the action onscreen. All the actors did well with their roles, but I’ll single out Vowell for her emotional portrayal of an uncertain, surly, yet teenage Violet who needed some form of support from her parental unit.  Animation has always been one of Pixar’s hallmarks, and Incredibles 2 is no exception.  They’ve come a long way in fourteen years with gradation, shading, water effects, and sense of speed.

“We’re all in this together.”

As for the film itself, Dash seemed to fall to the wayside on a few occasions and was a bit one-note with his performance.  Jack-Jack stole each scene he was in, but was surprisingly tame in the final sequences.  But when he and Edna were on the screen together, it was absolutely electric.  I wanted more.  The Screenslaver was a worthy villain and provided caution for each of us about devoting our lives to video screens—be they televisions, tablets, phones, or computers.  Another line that struck me was when Evelyn said, “People will trade quality for ease every time.”  Perhaps we all need to up our standards in our daily activities and not settle for second best when something better is available.

The focus of Incredibles 2, despite the superhero title, remains the family.  In many ways, I saw in the Parrs a microcosm of my own family.  Not everything in life goes the way we would like it to (and often doesn’t).  We struggle, we run away, we argue, we lose hope, but we always fall back on each other when the day is over. And in that, the Bible reminds us to “encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception” (Hebrews 3:13 HCSB).  The world can be a very evil place, so we must make sure we’re not falling captive to the issues around us while making a difference for good wherever we go. Together we rise; apart we fall.

That’s something all film critics can agree with.

Incredibles 2 – Family Bonds

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Incredibles 2 continues the story of the Parr family from The Incredibles. While it is ostensibly a superhero story, at its heart this is a film about family and especially about parenting as children go through all the changes of growing up.

As in the original, superheroes are still illegal, but with the supervillain The Underminer on the loose, the family of superheroes goes into action—rather heavy-handedly, creating a mess of the city and being relocated. Forced to live in a motel, the family tries to think about what the future will hold for them. The parents, Bob, aka Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson), and Helen, aka Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), know that one of them will need to get a job to support the family. Meanwhile, their middle school aged daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell) is attracted to a boy at school, son Dash (Huckleberry Milner) struggles with his homework, and toddler Jack-Jack is a handful just in himself.

But Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and their friend Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) get an offer from industrialist siblings Winston and Evelyn Deavor (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener). They want to improve the world’s opinion of superheroes and make them legal again. Their plan is to use Elastigirl to stop some crimes (she does far less damage in the process that Mr. Incredible or Frozone). So Helen goes off to the big city while Bob stays home with the kids.

It turns out that Bob is a stereotypical incompetent father. He tries, but he can’t grasp new math, has no idea how to help Violet with the boys, and Jack-Jack is impossible to get down for the night. Plus, Jack-Jack now is manifesting his own superpowers—a wide array of powers.

Helen is busy doing battle with The Screenslaver, a villain who uses screen (TV, computer, whatever) to hypnotize people and have them do his will. She feels bad that she isn’t with her family, but relishes the opportunity so show off her skills. It’s not unlike the juggling of priorities that many parents experience. But when The Screenslaver gets the upper hand, Bob and the kids head off to save the day and the world (mostly it’s the kids, including Jack-Jack, that get their parents out of hot water).

What is charming about the Incredibles films is that they give us a chance to see superheroes who aren’t sullen loners, but rather people with happy family lives—happy even when the going is hard. The film, I think, allows parents to be reminded that the job they do matters.  As the diminutive designer to the superheroes Edna Mode (Brad Bird) says, “Done properly, parenting is a heroic task.” As Bob mopes about being left out while Helen is fighting crime, this is a reminder of what the really hard job is. Parents aren’t gifted with super strength and powers—only with the love they have for their children. With that, parents face years of problems but also years of joy.

For the Parrs, a family where everyone has special powers, what really ties them together is not being strong, fast, elastic, invisible, or having lasers shooting out of their eyes. The connection they have is really the bond that can exist in the families of all those who go to watch the movie together.

Let me also put in a word here for Bao, the short directed by Domee Shi (the first woman to direct a Pixar film), playing along with Incredibles 2. It is a delightful story of a woman whose handmade dumpling comes to life. We watch as she and the dumpling go through the years. The dumpling passes through all the phases of childhood and into being a young adult. It is hard for the woman to let go of her baby dumpling, but in the end, we see just how wonderful it is to see your child grow into an adult.

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Studios