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Robert Forster

What They Had: Remembering to Forget

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“What do you mean she’s gone?”

In What They Had, Nick (Michael Shannon) opens with the phone call that every adult dreads: that their mother (Blythe Danner), Ruth’s dementia has caused her to wander into the night. As a result, Nick calls his sister, Bridget (Hilary Swank) and asks her to come home in an effort to convince their father Burt (Robert Forster) to begin the process of moving them into a proper senior’s facility. Struggling to hold on to his way of life, Burt is resistant, arguing that he is the best care for his wife in her time of need. As a result, Nick and Bridget must struggle to decide what’s best for their parents in their advanced age.

While it should be no surprise that a film anchored by Michael Shannon, Hilary Swank and Blythe Danner consists of strong performances, What They Had gains its true power from its authenticity. Using Bridget as the film’s emotional balance, the film accurately portrays the heartbreak and struggle that comes with having to care for one’s parents. In fact, one of the best aspects of the film is the manner in which it both affirms and challenges the voice of the elderly within the film. For every moment that Nick points out the truth that their parents’ safety is at risk, there is another which seems to justify Burt’s claim that he is still Ruth’s best caregiver. In doing so, the film manages to both honour the power of Burt and Ruth’s story while, at the same time, affirming Nick’s claim that they are unable to continue as they have.

The core of the film lies its exploration into the power of love, especially within the context of Burt and Ruth’s relationship. As Ruth continues to lose herself to her dementia, Burt’s deep love for his wife translate as her personal salvation. Although she increasingly struggles with the details of her life, his relentless commitment to her translates into the one thing that she remembers most easily. (“That’s my boyfriend,” she says repeatedly, “he’s always hanging around.”) His love for her becomes redemptive, providing her the stability that she so badly needs. (Of course, therein also lies the problem, as he also believes he is the only one capable of caring for her properly.)

More than this though, by juxtaposing Bridget’s emotional journey up against Burt and Ruth’s relationship, the film also demonstrates the power of different worldviews. Struggling through a disappointing marriage and tension with her daughter, Bridget’s view of love has been tainted, leaving her dissatisfied with life. In this way, we recognize her admiration for her parents’ marriage, which is based on ‘commitment’. The story of Burt and Ruth is one of traditional values, steeped in the beliefs of their time. Their love is the one Bridget aspires to have. However, the film is not content to simply hold Burt and Ruth’s marriage as the ‘standard’ either, questioning the relevancy of Burt’s views in today’s culture. It’s a beautiful tension that serves as a reminder that love continues to remain complicated. Although relationships look different between generations, there is much for us to learn from the values of those who have come before.

At its core, What They Had speaks to more than one family’s struggle to decide on their parents’ ability to live on their own. It’s a film about what it means to truly love someone else, through every stage of life. Featuring powerful performances by its cast, it’s a reminder of the conflict between love’s ‘butterflies’ and long-term commitment, even when your partner struggles to remember you.

What They Had is in theatres on October 26th, 2018

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.

 

Damsel – A Comedy (sort of) of Pessimism

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“Love and survival are all I want.”

“You’re not exclusive in that notion.”

In Damsel, the Zellner Brothers play with some typical movie genres. As a result, viewers are asked to wrap their minds around things that seem to not quite fit together, but in reality make for a quirky, yet enjoyable experience.

As an example of how things don’t quite fit, we see scenes in desert, in forests, and a seashore, that all seem to exist in the same vicinity. It doesn’t really matter how odd this is, it provides a bit of discontinuity meant to keep us slightly off balance. The same is true with some of the language used in the film. It seems too modern for the setting of a western probably sometime in the 1800s.

As the film opens, two men are waiting for a stagecoach in the middle of a red rock wilderness. One (David Zellner) is heading west in search of a new start after catastrophe in his life. The other, a minister (Robert Forster), is headed east after failing to bring salvation to Indians. The wisdom the minister provided the other man is that “Things are going to be shitty in new and fascinating ways.” He then takes off his clothes, giving them to the other man and heads out into the desert to die. The other man takes the clothes and partial Bible and assumes the persona of Parson Henry.

Then, there is the main story as Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson) comes ashore with a crate in which there is a miniature horse. He comes into a typical western town where he enlists Parson Henry to accompany him to marry his fiancée Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), who has been kidnapped. The plan is to rescue her, propose, give her the miniature horse as a gift, and have Parson Henry do the ceremony. But this hero/damsel-in-distress trope is quickly turned on its head. The story has so taken us in that we can’t help but follow it through even more twists along the way of this odd odyssey. It is hard even to classify this as a comedy or tragedy because the humor and pathos are so intertwined.

But the thread that runs through all the characters and their journeys is a desire to find happiness in a world filled with disappointment. But instead of happiness, the words of the old preacher about “new and fascinating ways” for things to go bad play out over and over. But while pessimism pervades the story, the characters seem to rely on a thin hope of optimism to survive. They may never have any evidence that things will get better, but they never give up on that possibility. Just as many of the laments within the Psalms may think that God does not see or care, the psalmists persist in calling on God to restore and renew them. While these characters do not operate with the idea that God will give them happiness, that hope of newness leads them on.

Phots courtesy of Magnolia Pictures