Perhaps because I just led a service on compassionate
communications today that this movie struck a chord with me due to its lack of the same. It is the story of a dysfunctional family
after its patriarch has committed suicide (it happens in the first few minutes
of the film, so I am not giving much away here). It is heavy on words and light
on cinematography and action. The acting is just
spectacular, although occasionally over the top. There are just so many good
performers in this, I almost didn’t recognize Abagail Breslin (from a great
movie Little Miss Sunshine, which I now realize is 9 years old and it makes
sense why I might not recognize her) And
although the matriarch of the family says she is truth telling, the movie is
all about how the secrets we keep and the truth we hold within ourselves,
ultimately poison us. It is about how we
really don’t understand others’ lives often, as one character states:
“Maybe its hard for you to believe,
looking at me, knowing me the way you do, all these years. I mean, I know to
you, Im just your old fat Aunt Mattie Fae. I’m more than that, sweetheart, there’s
more to me than that.”
People don’t just fit into the nice little boxes we imagine
them to be. Life is more complex than
that. The movie also shows how we are affected generationally by the suffering
of our parents. It is clear how each one of the children is a reflection of and
a reaction to their parents. And although the end of the movie didn’t tie
everything up in a nice little bow, I think that is the point. Our lives are never complete, and they are
always unfolding. The best we can do is
to try to understand ourselves and bring the truth to light as difficult as it
may be.
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