three movies this year plus one last year

There seems to be a trend in movies this summer. The summer of Quirky People experiencing extra ordinary relationship experiences. Maybe this is a backlash to the Reality TV epidemic. Prolog; Last year I watched an endearing movie called ‘Lairs and the Real Girl’. It was basically about a loner looking for unconditional love and acceptance…so, he chooses a true to life (sex) toy girl as his girl friend. To the naked eye, Lars Lindstrom is mentally ill and suffering from a psychological split. No one thinks he is normal and even the therapist is puzzled. But she encourages the family to go along with his fantasy. The ‘girlfriend’ came to life in every sense to Lairs and his whole community seemed to join in on the madness. She did although remain a doll. She never told dirty filthy jokes or grew leaves or spoke French. The story was heart felt, and I felt like it was sad but bittersweet in the end. It was original, somewhat enlightening and I left the movie feeling like “I got something out of it”. This summer I watched (in this order) TED, Ruby Sparks and now today; The Odd Life of Timothy Green. TED This summer comedy is about Mark Walberg’s character ‘John Bennett’ acting like a dumb guy while his “magically alive’ child hood stuffed animal TED acted like a (all be it funny at times) Super Dumb Guy. The toy Ted had a magical occurrence where he turned real but his actions were unreal in the sence that no ‘real person’ would act like that. It was a child hood sensation at first and dream come true for the Mark Walberg child but as in life everyone grows up and has to put away childish things. As Ted’s boy grew up physically, Ted made every attempt to stunt him from maturing mentally and emotionally. Blah blah blah. It was a raunchy movie about commitment, pot smoking, and relationship compromises. I laughed, I cried tears of laughter, and rolled my eyes. Will be a great rental when the kids are out of the house. The trailer is self explanatory. Ruby Sparks My Next the movie in this genre is Ruby Sparks We have a fantastical story of a “genius” named Calvin Weir-Fields (played by Paul Dano) who is an author- narcissist suffering from severe in a writer’s block. He is under the pressure of being a past author celebrity writing an award winning book when he was 19. Not only is Calvin is suffering from writers block; he is also in relationship block and has a general all around life block. He is lost in love and stuck, in a way like Lars, and John Bennett . In this movie his therapist helps him discover a whole new world through a simple writers exercise. Calvin starts to create a perfect girlfriend in writing and she comes to life. Ruby is perfect for Calvin she is also seemingly in his own image, which is creepy. She comes alive and is beyond his imagination. She is his perfect soul mate at first and could be a dream come true but as she evolves she slips out of Calvin’s control. As in most real life story’s, if it is too good to be true, its usually not true. Sooooo, of course everything goes array and almost ends in tragic despair. Almost! ‘Ruby Sparks’ is a cute artistic film and I enjoyed a lot in spite of the fact that I had to grapple with the ‘this could never happen’ feeling I was choking on the whole time. There was a narcissism ich factor as well but that played into the whole of the movie and I understood its roll in this film. If you like artistic quirky films, this was pretty good. The Odd Life of Timothy Green (watched in Early August) Moving on to my movie today. This movie takes place in a small town with small town values that’s main factory is down on luck. Think; bed and breakfast, bike riding, multi- generational family soccer, family picnics and pretty people who support their bully children in polo shirts. The main characters are pretty people couple who are interviewing with a scary adoption agency. They tell their sorted story about why they would make good parents and how they came to gain true parental experience through their fantastical story. They go on to explain a ridiculous tale about their “mud boy” Timothy Green who arrived on a stormy night out of despair, to teach them and the world (ER, their little towns people) how to live a better life and be good parents. (take a deep breath) At first sight, this adorable couple would obviously make the perfect adoption family. Frankly, they could have a baby pretty fast in my opinion. When they start to tell the crazy story about the leafy mud boy who lived as their son for a year and disappeared,,, only after teaching them how to be true parents; I start to wonder. I think that these people should go back to the “lets get a puppy” idea and call quits. (side note, the puppy idea was initially being tossed around) I think that if this crazy thing happened to me and Mac, we would have buried it way away from any adoption agency with real fear that they would think we are wacko’s and we would get black balled. Plus, I would be so heart broken that I could not tell the story in a cherry manner like this couple. BIG Red flag! Before the boy arrives in the mud we are told that this couple can not have bio-children. They have a few baby things in a room including a crib, which that tells me that maybe there is a lost baby at some point. This is a loss I am very failure with. The despair is real when they drink the wine and play let’s talk about our lost dream kid… I get it. I do not ‘get’ how they can accept a little boy who arrives literally out of their garden in a storm (during a drought) with out calling in child welfare services or someone. The cute couple avoided all normal protocol and just go with the flow and pretend that this kid is theirs and legit. They tell their families and the community and schools that he is their son. This happens FOR A YEAR! They love him and are real parents… WHAT? (spoiler alert) when timothy divulges the grand plan that he has to go back to the magic land and ditch his parents… I start to think ‘ok here we go with the heartache and some real relate-able pain’. There should have been mega feelings of loss. You don’t just move on from this stuff with the cheeriness that was portrayed in the movie. WTF? At times this movie is heartwarming. But at other times I found myself wanting to scream: REALLY?? Maybe as a mother though adoption, I carry a negative bias towards the over simplifying of the emotions in adoption stories. All adoption stories that end well should feel good, but this is more of a loss for foster parents story. The loss in Timothy Green is so sad and it gets brushed off in such a Disney way that it was incredibly overwhelming. The grave loss that these people should have been feeling when their “son” Timothy Green disappeared should have been dealt with more deeply in the movie. That is not how it works… loose one kid… get another and be totally fine. Where were the tears and anguish, I felt it for them.. they smiled on… really weird stuff. Now its September 17, and I need to finish this silly piece I’m writing… so here goes. The more I sit with the impact of this movie the angrier I get. I think it was irresponsible. What if my kids saw this film? Would they think that kids are expendable? I think it was a horrific message. When the adoption agency delivers the 6 year old looking Asian child who was to be their next child in the end of the movie I was left me shaking my head pretty much screaming UGH! Her name was Lilly. Again seriously?!?!