Here, Mom

Belated birthday gift. I limited the views on this one, because it’s for Mom.

Nan Can Cook, premiere installment

Here’s a video I made for a contest that the Criterion Collection is doing in honor of its release of Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. The movie itself is a strange, 3 hour formal exercise in recording pretty much every move that a woman makes. Yes, it’s an actress, but the point of it is that small, mundane details tell a story as much if not more than big, interesting ones. As my friend Peter said, the whole thing becomes weirdly suspenseful; will Jeanne alter her routine? Who can know. Watch and find out (if, that is, this is your cup of tea).

Anyway, it seemed like a no-brainer to just copy the film as closely as possible, but once I saw someone do that, I realized how dull it was. The movie is fascinating because you’re sucked into the world, just as watching someone you know well do any small task reveals links to their character. When simply copied, there’s not much to do. I mean, you might as well paint a wall and watch that dry.

Now I can see how an accumulation of people repeating meatloaf and potato cooking could be interesting as a mosaic, but these are long ass videos that take several minutes to watch and, well, it’s just not my thing. So I flipped it, as does Leon on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the result is either going to annoy people to death because they don’t like my screen persona (I feel I am the Steven Wright of cooking) or amuse them particularly if they do know me because it’s very me, or teach them how to make really good smashed potatoes. It’s all good, I guess.

Note that the reference at the end is to the fact that Jeanne turns tricks that are just as dreary as her cooking in order to make the rent each month. In hindsight, I realize that anyone who watched the original movie will probably have clicked off long before the final joke in annoyance at my tactics, so it will be lost to all but you, dear nanarama devoted.

By the way, to make these potatoes, cook up a couple of pounds of well-scrubbed unpeeled potatoes (I use small ones here, but any potatoes will do), drain them; I mention that I save cooking water in the video, but you’ll see I don’t use it. Throw in sour cream (I use no-fat), butter (I use whipped for less calories), and 2 wedges of Laughing Cow Light Garlic Cheese. How much? A good amount, that’s how much. (Sorry, I hate to measure.) Smash the stuff into the potatoes with abandon. Stir in chopped herbs; here I use parsley and scallion tops, but ideally I would use chives instead as they have a more delicate flavor.

By the way too, I had an absolutely blast doing this, so will be doing more and posting here. Watch this space.

Real Is Better

There’s a scene in Julie and Julia that pretty much encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the movie (Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci being much that is right with it, though of course you can also throw in Paris in the 50s and a lot of food porn). Amy Adams and her unthreatening cute boyfriend sit on a couch and watch Dan Ackroyd’s wonderful Julia Child impression. The camera focuses on the TV with Dan in drag, then cuts to Amy and u.c.b. laughing, then cuts back to Dan, then back to them – what would be ad nauseum if the Ackroyd scene weren’t so short.

I mean….really? Watching cute people laughing at a video clip is…somehow furthering the story? Help me out here.

That a book and a movie based on someone following a how-to manual – albeit one of the greatest how-to manuals of all time – could be not only sold but bought by large numbers of people should give one serious pause. I mean, are we that low on ideas, that tolerant of other people’s narcissism that this is … it?

Perhaps the oddest thing about the movie is that the Julia Child/Meryl Streep sections are a delight, well-written, nicely plotted, superbly acted and production designed with loving, fanatical detail. Furthermore, there’s a real story there. You start to realize what Julia Child accomplished, the doors that she kicked down, and that there was, a long time ago, a place for a great writer to sing her own song without constantly fine-tuning it so it would have Maximum Marketability. Child had a clear mission – teach Americans French cooking – and cared about it enough to spend 8 years getting her cookbook perfect. She did it for love, not money or attention, but she was also a helluva writer. Persistence, dedication, and spouse support made it possible.

By juxtaposing this titanic talent with Amy Adams’ character, the Julie of the title, the movie does a pretty extraordinary job of showing 21st century pop culture for the fingernail-deep reflecting pool that it is. It’s so depressing. At one’s most generous, one can call Julie’s talent modest; quotes read directly from her blog (the way the script explains this Wacky New Internet Phenomenon is particularly annoying) show her writing to be about as thrilling as your average Woman’s Day editorial, or one of those annoying students who follow all the rules in order to assure a comfortable A with an occasional “nice metaphor!” notated in red in the margins. I could barely suppress a groan every time the director cut back to this story line, knowing Julie would make some charming utterance about butter being delicious, or how marvelous it is that cooking turns out nicely when your day at the office is crappy, or how yummy her first egg is. Ugh. It’s like when one of those completely self-absorbed women who are pregnant for the first time go on and on about the Novelty of It All. (At least one knows to avoid this woman at all costs once she actually gives birth.)

Had the casting director had the sense to get someone with a little bit of fire to play Julie, it might be less gooey, but to choose Amy Adams, who, like Meg Ryan before her, easily crosses the line from cute as a button to please can I swallow some acid to cut the sugar way too often, is some sort of sadistic genius at work. Christopher Plummer said that working with Julie Andrews was like being hit over the head with a valentine. Watching Amy Adams make yet another toast to her wonderful husband and Julia is more like being smothered with one. At least the hit on the head can be somewhat bracing.

It is only right that we find out that Julia Child did not have a high opinion of Julie Powell’s blog. It’s sort of marvelous, in fact, and at least the movie leaves this little tidbit in, though of course it’s coated in a smarmy “the Julia in your mind is what matters” speech. And it’s that glorious reality that got me to watch All That Jazz last night.

I admit, I am a fan of So You Think You Can Dance. The judges are rather horrifying, except for one bizarre yet wonderful night when Ellen deGeneres appeared as a guest. The solos are variously twirly, leapy, and vapid. But at least once per show there’s a beautifully danced routine that showcases some great young talent. Naturally, the equally regular mini-train wreck is even more fun.

However, I was hoping, not very sensibly, that the show’s take on the brilliant “Bye Bye Life” number at the end of All That Jazz would be something to remember. It was dreadful. Like the horrible Youtube video of Gwen Verdon doing a piece called Mexican Breakfast with a hip hop song overdubbed, this version completely missed Fosse’s musicality, which was extraordinary. His tight, hyper-contracted movements coupled with super-sinuous limb twisting always existed as one piece with the soundtrack. Bye Bye Life uses a cheesy electric piano and flute in a way indelibly connected with late 70s/early 80s movie music (watch Tootsie sometime), but in context of the Fosse movie, it has all the sinister edge of its first release, dating not a hair – until it gets butchered for the So You Think You Can Dance routine. In the hands of Tyce D’Orio, the routine goes from a jagged and unforgettable goodbye to nonsensical galumphing around a stage; the only thing saving it is the talent of the two young dancers going at it for all they’re worth.

I can only hope that they get exposed to genuine Fosse at some point. But they’ll have to go to Fosse movies for that. The show Fosse that ran on Broadway barely taps the man’s genius, and tries to make him almost cuddly. Instead, watch any of his four, practically perfect movies, including the non-dancing ones Star 80 and Lenny, with Cabaret rounding it out. Cut to the dances in Sweet Charity, which is otherwise a big pile of awful. Get your hands on the Pippin revival. It’s not a great show, and features one particularly bad number strikingly like the Airotica ballet, a dumb but necessary part of All That Jazz that encapsulates the worst of Fosse’s pretensions about the intersection of sex and dance. But throughout Pippin are extraordinary set pieces that are sharp, precise, witty, and beautiful.

There will, unfortunately, be a zillion more exercises like Julie/Julia and D’Orio/Fosse. Hopefully, the second half of the equations will continually shine even brighter from the comparisons.

Emotional Stew

This week has had a million excuses to drink (not that I ever used to need more than one lame one).

1. Friday was the 20th anniversary of Karl’s death.
2. Friday night, I drove the eldest up to Detroit, where she met with her father to spend the summer in Philly.
3. Thursday, the hostile communication mentioned in the last post was resolved in a goodbye.
4. Today, I spoke to someone for the first time in almost 10 years. It was lovely.
5. Throughout all, the spouse has been creatively fired up to 11.
6. Friday afternoon, a friendship that had been disconnected was reconnected.
7. I have to write a lot of stuff at work and am feeling increasingly burned out.
8. I’m on my own creative streak but scared I won’t be able to do anything with it.
9. Wednesday, I had a filling replaced and I’m still sore.

Processing all of this is pretty confusing, kind of like eating about 5 different cuisines in one meal (which is kind of what I just did). I’ve had too much, and even though a lot of it has been good, it’s still just a lot.

Without a big bottle of wine to fall into, my instinct is to retreat from all this into a frenzy of activity. I’m trying not to do that, trying to be lazy and just do one thing at a time, but that doesn’t come naturally. July is always a lousy month for me, mainly because of the anniversary. It is at least a beautiful day. Hell, I really have nothing to complain about.

The Eldest’s departure is unquestionably the biggest fish to fry. I am elated that she’s getting away from this town and a bunch of relationships that, while not necessarily harmful, aren’t doing all that much for her. She’s at a point where she needs to be out of the house, and my major apprehension is that she may come back too soon, before her independence can really kick in; it’s clearly something she’s unable to achieve with me around. I get that she basically has to reject home in order to cut the cord; I don’t think all kids are this way, but she’s one who is.

My expectations are probably way too high, and so are my fears. I have to just be still and shut up. Peace is in focus, not distraction. It’s there for the asking. I just have to want it enough to shut off all the noise.

“A Scarily High Tolerance for Abuse”

That is something my therapist said to me at a session shortly before the new year. Fortunatly, she was referring to the fact that I seemed to be losing it.

In one of those perfect storms that happen so frequently in life, 3 unrelated incidents have converged and brought the observation to mind.

A mention of a woman in what would seem to be a physically comfortable but mentally unbearable relationship reminded me of my bad boyfriend history. I’ve been in two really lousy relationships, one abusive on every level, the other born of staggering incompatibility glossed over by intense physical attraction. In both situations, my self-image, historically a bit shaky (“I rock! I’m worthless! I’m worthless because I rock!”), was at a slip-it-under-the-door level. Blame it on genetics – from what I’ve learned, sub-threshold bipolar lurks in the DNA, though full-blown bi-polar seems to be an overcommitment for all but a brave few – or on any number of things. Who cares? When you believe that you have to humbly take that shit, you unfortunately might as well put a giant sign on yourself that says, “Abuse me! Really! I won’t hardly fight back.” It’s unfathomable to people looking at certain situations why anyone in that position wouldn’t just pack up and leave, but … they don’t.

Solid support got me out both times, but damn, it must have been frustrating to watch. In both cases, I wouldn’t listen, believing that I loved the controller. What I really felt was a bizarre tangle of emotions that would give some analyst a very large and lengthy headache should she be foolish enough to try to decode it. But I did break free, both times, painfully but (cliche alert) ultimately stronger. The fact that the first relationship could have left me actually dead is not lost on me. I’m grateful to be alive.

And while the experience has given me an empathy with people in the same situation, it has also given me some despair. Nothing I or anyone else can say or do will get anyone out of a bad relationship except for the person who’s in it. She has to just say, fuck you, enough, and she has to believe it enough, if only for the few minutes it takes to walk out the door.

But that realization – that it’s not my problem – is the second part of storm, and it’s probably the most revelatory. Things around the house and the office that at one time would have driven me nuts and kept me awake…just…don’t any more. I still will lose sleep over what I consider a direct attack, but I used to perceive those, as well as indirect ones, around every corner. Geez, I took almost everything personally.

One of my favorite poems is this one by Stephen Crane:

A man said to the universe:
“Sir I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

But I didn’t really believe it, clearly, at least not as it applied to me. Now I do. Suddenly, I am able to live (at least more than half the time) my mother’s dictum, “We wouldn’t worry so much about what other people think about us if we realized how little they do.” I always sagely nodded when she said it, but somehow, in the last month, it got into my bones.

Which is why the last storm element – an angry communication so nicely written that I had to let it sink in before I realized how angry it was – is inspiring in me a healthy dose of anger in return. Time was, oh say about a month or so ago, that I would have immediately felt an obligation to fix things. I don’t now. Basically, what seems to be the main point of contention is simply untrue. In the past, I wouldn’t have rested until I straightened things out and made sure my perception was known. Somehow, I understand this time that, if the person didn’t get that perception until now, nothing I say will make any difference. If people want to insist on believing things about me that aren’t true…it’s their loss. I’m a great friend, but if you don’t agree, that’s your decision. I have nothing to do with it.

After all, my rush to mend, my willingness to always say I was wrong, my instinct to smooth things over, was really a kind of arrogance, to make myself the center of attention, to get points for being so tolerant, so humble, so forgiving. Screw that. There is so much I neither can nor should fix. There are things that are intolerable, and to tolerate them is to be a jerk. And forgiveness is great unless it’s really just a way to take more abuse, which I think mine has often been. I’m working on that part.

I like this me. It’s so much easier to live with. It’s at once lighter and more grounded.

Here’s hoping it sticks.

So….what have you been up to?

well….

I’ve been inspired, then lost the traction, and keep trying to get it back. And will, at some point. Maybe this weekend.
I read a bunch of books, at the cost of writing a bunch of posts.
I got really close to somebody really terrific. Good friends are rare and, well, good.
I realized what I don’t want to do with my life.
I started to realize that gravity is what it is. Neither more nor less.
I decided I really wanted my back back.
I cracked a filling.
I laughed a lot because I was happy.
I cried a little because I was scared.
I found out how much I loved someone.
The kids had birthdays. We did the same thing for both. It worked great once.
When toxic things came my way, I felt mad and not guilty.
I prayed more and believed I’d get results.
I got results.
I felt, and continue to feel, really really grateful for all the stuff in my life. Even the bad stuff.

Of course, I’ve been up to a lot more. Those aren’t really highlights. You can’t hardly cover those, especially if you don’t capture them as they come. But that’s ok.
Tomorrow is a sweet word.

remember me

There. I wrote something.

I will be back soon. Terribly blocked/tired/conflicted/etc. but things are going to be better now. See you soon.

2 More

Well, hell. Lately, I write mostly about death.

However, before launching into yet another mournfest, I must declare my gratitude that the fears in my last post have been vanquished. Sis 3’s operation results are completely clean, and this disease is not taking her. Even greater than this news is her incredible joyful spirit. She continues to inspire me, and I am crazy about her.

Today I found out that my first husband’s father and brother are, as of Thanksgiving of last year, both dead. My former mother-in-law calls me about every 9 months or so. She is a lovely woman and has always treated me with great kindness. She remains my sole contact with Karl’s family, who I otherwise am interested in primarily as people I used to know.

As the news sinks in, I’m mildly but not hugely surprised by all the emotions that it’s kicking up. For about a year of our lives, Karl’s father, brother, and the father’s second wife were the people I saw most regularly besides Karl’s doctor and my aerobics students.

Karl got sick while we were living in New York. From there, we headed to Boston where his older sister, who’d married well, had found us an apartment so I could take care of Karl and he could see the best doctors she could find (AIDS, unfortunately, was still such a new disease in 1986 that the best didn’t know a whole lot more than the not-best). Anyone who’s spent time in Boston can attest that the climate isn’t exactly health-friendly. Karl also hated the Red Sox. Given 6 months or less to live, he decided he wanted to move to Florida to reconcile if possible with his father after what was, at the time, 36 years of a rocky and unloving relationship.

I detested Karl’s father as soon as I met him. He was labelled “charming” by people who, I think, were trying to give themselves an excuse for being suckered by his boorish manipulation at one point or another. He was a petty, cruel man who never passed up an opportunity to get in a dig at Karl, and who I think always harbored the idea that Karl, dark, slender, and the spitting image of his black-eyed Portuguese mother, was not the son of his stocky Aryan loins. (We always had to leave for plane trips early in those days of Qaddafi, as Karl looked, in his own words, like a terrorist and we could count on him getting held up by security about half the time.) Karl had run away from home in Connecticut to New York when he was 16, headed to Portugal to dodge the draft (his maternal grandfather was there) when he was 17, and had never had a relationship with his father that had any positive aspect that I could see.

It is true that between K’s mother, father, and sister, an adequate if frugal allowance was provided for us, and his sister handled all the medical bills. For that, I’m grateful. I understand that it was hard on them financially, and I know their son was dying and that that sucked. A lot of things sucked for all of us.

I think Karl hoped for a while for his father’s respect, but I don’t think he expected to get it. He looked me in the eye about 9 months before he died and said, very matter-of-factly, “Kid, I hate my father.” He seemed resigned to it. He’d tried. I remember one particularly horrible fight where the father said, “Your whole problem with this AIDS thing is that you didn’t go off like my brother and become a war hero,” and Karl spat back, “Yeah, your fucking vegetable brother.” It went downhill from there.

That was the fight that tipped me from dislike to hatred. From then on, I had as little contact with the old man as possible.
Apparently, the brother died just 2 days after the father, and perhaps literally, according to the autopsy report (filtered to me through the mom) of a broken heart. Johnny was one of those men who, unlike Karl, desperately wanted his father’s love. He moved to Florida the same time that we did, worked for the old man, who seemed to dote on him, but prior to his death, had no love or sign of it to give to the kid. An addict like his brother (and unbeknownst to us at the time, me), Johnny fairly often harassed me to give him some of Karl’s drugs, got petulant and nasty when I wouldn’t, and generally was insanely confusing. He acted his age, which pissed me off because I could never act mine.

Johnny did have a sweet side, which was much more in evidence once Karl and I cut loose of West Palm Beach – he’d given up all hope of any type of reconciliation after a year – and headed to Key West. J came down to see us a few times, and once saw me through an insane amount of alcohol and the subsequent killer hangover with the non-judgment that only a fellow addict has in that situation. One year minus 3 days younger than me (and thus 11 years minus 4 days younger than Karl), he wanted a family that behaved something like families are supposed to, at least on TV and in movies. He never got one.

The last time I saw either the father or brother was when we all met in Miami after Karl died. Key West didn’t have a crematorium, so K’s body had to be sent to Miami. We all met in a hotel room. I was in one of the most bizarre emotional places I would ever be in. It is a terrible thing to feel tremendous relief after someone dies, but anyone who’s nursed someone through a long and gruelling illness can understand it, I think. My mother was there, and had been with Karl and me when he died, at home in Key West. I felt terrible that his mother last saw Karl in basically a cardboard box, which is how the mortician sent the body to Miami. I didn’t know that you had to order a pine box, and they didn’t say anything to anyone, apparently. That was how his parents and siblings last saw him; a cardboard box. His mother, sister and brother didn’t deserve that.

But his father did.

I don’t love the fact that still, to this day, the thought of that little bastard can make me feel so dark and stormy. Clearly, I hate his petty cruelty because it brings out my own. I am not glad that he’s dead. It’s been too long, 20 years, in fact. I would have been glad if it had happened sooner. That’s ugly of me. It’s probably uglier still that I feel no guilt over it, just a self-righteous anger that still feels good.

Anyway, it beats the uneasy sadness that I feel about his brother.

I had hoped, in the last couple of years, after hearing from his mom (of course) how, after yet another stint at rehab, J was getting his feet under him, that I’d see him again, or at least talk to him. Now that that’s impossible….I don’t know how I feel. Mostly detached. I wonder what happened to both of them after they died.

The thought of John and Karl being reunited is not so comforting as I would hope but rather seems just odd, especially with the old man bumping around somewhere nearby. I truly hope John found peace, but I have no such kind wishes for the old man. That’s a gross feeling, and hopefully I’ll work my through it and have a little more grace at some point. Ugh.

I remember John wrote me a letter, clearly anguished, not long before Karl died, where he asked me to ask Karl to say he was sorry to some kid he knew who had died, a death to which J was somehow connected, but I’m not sure how. I read the letter to Karl, but I think he was pretty drugged at that point, perpetually. I don’t remember him having much of a response.

One thing I know: The Good Death is a myth. I feel peace about Karl because he had a Good Life. Tons of bad decisions, not enough time, but for 5 years we had each other and we didn’t waste it. And of course, before he met me, he Lived; as he would have said, he didn’t fuck around. HE LIVED. When there were things to enjoy, he ran headlong into them. When it was finally time for him to die, he ran into the light.

I don’t think that’s how it worked for either his father or brother. I hope, in the years that I lost touch, that his brother experienced crazy, unspeakable joy and love at some point, like I did with Karl, and like I’ve been blessed to have with so many people in my life, from the spouse and the kids to my parents and sibs and some friends.

In time, maybe I can even wish that for the old man.

But I’ll never know now if it happened.

Big Women

I’m not sure how I stumbled on the form of the play, but I loved it as soon as I found it. As a shy, gawky, unathletic kid in a family of jocks, I loved escaping into books more than anything else, and the Saratoga library was easily my favorite place. In a small brick building crammed with tall, dark wooden bookshelves, I felt safe and transported to someplace where I wouldn’t be teased for my weirdness, both physical and social.

I quickly exhausted the section of children’s plays; it was small anyway, and most of the plays were, even to my 7-year-old brain, on the stupid side. One anthology that I checked out over and over had a stage version of A Little Princess that went by the name of Sara Crewe. I would read all the parts initially, but always ended up with myself as Sara, noble and strong in the face of adversity. But there were only so many times I could read that, and no one to read it with. And then, one day while reading Little Women, it hit me; I can still remember feeling a little breathless at the discovery. Four sisters: the oldest caught up in parties and being the oldest, the second a coltish tomboy, the third a shy beauty who played the piano, and the fourth the artistic one accused of being spoiled. Other than Jo matching my second sister a bit uncannily, the other 3 were a bit of a stretch. But to my fevered young mind, it was a perfect fit. I diligently began transcribing the novel into script form on a yellow legal pad, getting to chapter 3 before giving up because honestly, my brother was not going to make a satisfactory Laurie.

But I still went back to Little Women time and again until I was about 12, switching off between Jo and Amy, the best parts. I tried to draw for a while to make the connection a little less tenuous, but it soon became patently clear that Jo was the favorite and got the most lines.

Over time, though, the parallels been the four sisters have echoed occasionally in my head. Like Amy, I got the trip to Europe and an altogether easier life thanks to my parents being older and in better shape financially as I grew. Like Jo, my second sister is a great mother, still a bit of tomboy, and basically gets things done. The oldest sister/Meg connection has never been particularly strong, but mainly because Meg was always shafted by Louisa May Alcott in the personality department, not something that can be said of my oldest sister. But Beth, like Sis 3, stays a homebody, with no big ambitions other than being around people she loves.

For the last 2 years, there has been another, unfortunate coincidence: Sis 3 has struggled with miserable health. Early this week, news of a potentially fatal development came; the outlook has since brightened somewhat, but nothing is certain yet. I have long accepted that, as the youngest, I am likely to bury most if not all my siblings, which really sucks, but, well, that’s just logic. And since spouse 1’s death, I have been extremely grateful that each passing year has gone by without some ugly spectre being raised. But now, I can’t say that any more. I can see and feel my age more all the time. This week, I realized that aging is not just feeling creaky and sluggish in the morning and watching various body parts go south. It’s realizing that, when the people you love most are older than you, they’re going to leave you at some point, and it may not be far in the future.

For now, as said, things are looking a little better than they were a while ago. All this is happening at a time when I can actually afford to visit California more than I ever could have in the past. But I would be lying if I didn’t wish, fervently, that I lived down the street from her. I wish that anyway. For now, as we say, we’ll always have Slumdog, which we saw together on my last trip out there and which I dragged the spouse to today. I wanted him to see it because I love the movie and I love him. But it also makes me feel extremely close to Sis 3.

We’ll muddle through, L, one way or another. I promise.
xo

Stone Cold

Seth Rogan is on the Oscars doing his pot thing. Pot humor bores the shit out of me 90% of the time. Stoned people are much funnier to themselves than to anyone else, and basically they just seem like idiots, which I guess is the point. Of course, laughing uproariously at stuff that’s mildly amusing is less obnoxious than passionate lectures about perception, doors opening onto it, cliches as philosophy, declarations that are profound to the declarer but just make the listener feel embarassed and sad for the speaker and …. well, you get the idea.

But over the weekend, I saw pot and its consumption treated in a movie with true charm, mainly because the movie itself was so charming. Duck Season, which I found courtesy of the so-often odious Manohla Dargis, is a very small (not much more than 70 minutes), very sweet movie. It’s about 2 kids who spend a weekend in a parent-free Mexico City apartment with a couple of friends, and pot consumption occurs about midway through. The entire movie is about innocence, which somehow is maintained throughout. Rather than watching a bunch of overweight shlubby guys laugh at stupid shit (Judd Apatow, your life is calling), you see 4 people who don’t quite know what hit them. There are no incoherent justifications for how great weed is, just genuine joy in the sound of water dripping out of a faucet and in the worthy pastime of giggling.

The pot scenes pass by in a blip; they’re just part of a weekend where the kids and their companions rather aimlessly go from anticipating the time of their lives to realizing that life isn’t a series of revelations as much as a walk from one place to another where, much of the time, you just kind of zone out rather than really live. At the same time, the irrepresible nature of kids continually pops up again, joyful and hopeful despite the odds.

I do hope the Eldest watches it. I think it will make her smile.