Filed under: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Birth Order, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce
The Boys are Back is an Australian movie about a man whose second wife dies leaving him with his 6-year old son to raise alone while in the middle of grieving. The entire vibe of the household changes as the single Father sets up house the way he thinks is fitting. And then into this commotion his English first wife sends their son over to visit. The Father hasn’t seen this son in 8 years (I might have the years wrong).
The marquee outside the movie theater said this is based on a real story which is believable because, although in the end all problems seem to have been solved (which is unlikely because no Father who is that good looking is going to be single for such a long time) the relationships and the way the emotions come out really does seem genuine. The feelings of the children is explored. This isn’t just another film about an American parent who has to think of some way to make his child useful to his life. The older son from the divorced older family is clearly left out of the picture, feels like the oddball out for a very long time in the story and the Father confronts these feelings. He confronts his absentee Fathering. There’s no denial. The Father takes an active role as a parent rather than letting the relationship slide. So I guess it really is make-believe because that just doesn’t happen in real life.
Although death and divorce are talked about in one breath together in real life they are really so much different, especially for the kids. Death brings finality. The grief involved has to do with coming to terms with complete loss. Divorce brings complete loss of secure family (which can’t be discussed), feelings of failure, guilt, trying to fix things, false hopes, maybe relief (although the only people I’ve ever heard say this were shrinks), and just general dis-ease and awkwardness that one has to get used to.
Anyway, this is probably the only movie that I remember being able to relate to on an emotional level. Maybe that’s because I’ve experienced both Divorce and Death of parents. At any rate, it will make you laugh. It will make you cry. And it will make you wish you could live in the Grandmother’s house which is so cool.
Filed under: Movies About Growing Up in Divorce
Last week end I went to see the new Ben Stiller movie Night at the Museum 2.
Since the title has a “2″ in it I suppose that this is a sequel which may have set up Stiller’s character better with regards to his divorce and his relationship with his one son. At any rate, in this movie Stiller has become successful with his own business and finds that he really liked his old job.
Stiller’s character is a divorced single dad who shares custody with his ex for his one son. I’m assuming that the first movie gave him more of a relationship with the son but in this movie I came away not understanding why they even put the kid in the show. Stiller’s character is completely self-involved and his son isn’t involved in his transformation at all except as a tiny character who helps him with his problems from afar with his computer. During the last big victory scene I don’t think the kid is present at all. Stiller just walks off with his new love interest.
Is this how parents see their lives now in relation to their children? What about the kids who are taken to see this movie? This is how they see their role portrayed in their parents’ lives. The kid doesn’t eat, he doesn’t have friends, he just sits at his computer and waits for his father to call to ask for help. This is particularly bad because this movie is essentially a kid’s fantasy movie.
Filed under: Custody, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, creativity, separate households
Noah Baumbach is the Director/Writer of one of the few true movies about going through a Divorce, The Squid and the Whale. It is said to be based on experiences he went through during his own parents’ divorce. Baumbach’s biography is a little sketchy so I’m not sure of his age at the time of his parent’s divorce. I’m assuming he was around Age 15 or 16.
The Squid and the Whale is about a family living in Brooklyn in the mid-80s. The parents are intellectuals, both writers, the Father is going through a mid-life crisis and down-turn in his career and ego and the Mother’s career is just taking off. The sons are age 12 and age 16. The movie does a great job of showing the strangeness of going through adolescence while also going through the parents’ divorce.
I saw the movie a while ago and thought it a little dry. The significance of the Squid and the Whale is explained at the end but I was spacing out at that point. Sorry.
Supposedly the first words were the 12 year old Son saying: “Me and Mom against you and Dad.” That definitely sums it up pretty well.
There’s a great article at indiewire which analyzes the relationships. http://www.indiewire.com/article/noahs_arc_noah_baumbachs_the_squid_and_the_whale
Here’s a quote about how narcissistic parents raise their kids in divorce. Can hardly wait for the sequel with Step-Parents and siblings:
“the parental choice to treat children as equals can be admirable but also suggests a deeper selfishness that seems fundamentally at odds with the job.”
Filed under: Exemplary Children of Divorce, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Uncategorized
For some reason I’ve been remembering the old Horror movie from the 1960’s called Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Now appreciated mostly as a camp classic it is one of the most psychotic portrayals of women living together under one roof that has ever been produced. The two actresses in the movie let their ugliest sides show, almost as if they were giving the finger to the Hollywood Glamour machine. At any rate, I just can’t imagine someone coming from an Intact family being able to create that level of tension within a house. The story is mostly about sibling rivalry, two spinsters with life long jealousies and resentments almost kill each other.
Just had to check…both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were Children of D. Man, you can tell they were given way too much information at too tender an age.
Bette Davis’ parents divorced in 1915 when she would have been around 10 years old.
Joan Crawford’s father left just a few months after she was born.
Out of curiosity I checked the biographies of other screen stars from the 20th Century and found the following:
Sophia Loren – parents never married
Audrey Hepburn – Parents divorced around Age 6
Lauren Bacall – Parents divorced Age 5
Jean Harlow – Parents divorced Age 11
Lana Turner – Parents divorce around Age 9
Marilyn Monroe – Parents divorced Age 1-2
Filed under: Birth Order, College Drop Out, Exemplary Children of Divorce, High School Drop Out, Mentally Ill parents, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Nutrition, School Drop Out - High School or College, creativity, self injury
Johnny Depp gave an incredible performance of an oldest Son growing up while living with a helpless, obese, single mother and younger brother in the movie: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Probably not really good Holiday Viewing, though. Just happened to think of it right now.
Johnny Depp is a Child of D. His parents would have divorced around the time that Depp was 15. Here’s an except from his biography on Wikipedia.
Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, the son of Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, Sr., a civil engineer.[3] He has one brother, Danny, and two sisters, Christie (now his personal manager) and Debbie. … The family moved frequently during Depp’s childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than 20 different locations, settling in Miramar, Florida, in 1970. In 1978, Depp’s parents divorced. He engaged in self-harm as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 interview, he explained his self-injury by saying, “My body is a journal in a way. It’s like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist”.[8]
1980s
Depp’s mother bought her son a guitar when he was 12, and Depp began playing in various garage bands. His first band was in honor of his girlfriend, Meredith. A year after his parents’ divorce, Depp dropped out of high school to become a rock musician. As he once explained on Inside the Actors Studio, he attempted to go back to school two weeks later, but the principal told him to follow his dream of being a musician. …
Remembered two more Movies to link to that are about Children of D. As usual it’s difficult to tell whether or not the Writer/Directors are Children of D themselves just by reading their biographies. It seems that they find the extra added stress of entering teenage years while having the extra burden of dysfunctional parents is great for story telling. There is no mention of balancing complex relationships between two distinct sets of parents or of living in double families so I tend to think that there is no personal experience expressed here. That part of the Child of D experience seems to be really challenging for story telling. The Boy Character represented is the typical Nerdy Child of D. The Girl Character is rebellious and out of control.
Napolean Dynamite, a really funny comedy, was written by a Husband/Wife team. The lead character, Napolean, is a Nerd who lives in a fantasy world. His much older brother is unemployed and searches for Babes on the Internet. There are no parents and no mention of parents. The two brothers live with their Grandmother and the story starts when she leaves to visit a friend.
Thirteen about a girl going through adolescent rage when she finds drugs and sex with a friend, also a Child of D. The girl lives with her Mother, a recovering alcoholic/addict/can’t remember which who is in and out of relationships. The Father shows up occassionally and doesn’t really have much interaction with his kids. The movie was written in 6 days by writer/director Catherine Hardwicke who worked with her ex-boyfriend’s daughter on the project. The daughter stars in the movie as the trouble making friend. Then we could watch real life. Hardwicke talks about it here: http://www.tribute.ca/people/Catherine+Hardwicke/11108
She became inspired to write a screenplay after dating a man with a young daughter. Although she stopped seeing the man, she continued to hang out with his daughter, Nikki Reed. When the girl turned 13, Hardwicke saw her go through a dramatic change, becoming angry, secretive and uncommunicative. When Reed showed a passion for acting and film, Hardwick decided to bring Reed in on one of her dreams â?? to write and direct a film. In six days, the two wrote the first draft of a screenplay based on Reedâ??s true life experiences. Determined to get the screenplay produced while Reed was still young enough to play a part in the film, Hardwicke brought the project to the attention of two producers, who were drawn to the story. Thirteen (2003) was filmed when Reed was just 14, playing not the character based on herself but the secondary lead, with experienced 14-year-old actress Even Rachel Wood in the lead role.
Filed under: Abandonment, Birth Order, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., money
Frozen River, a Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize Winner, is an incredible movie about two women who come together as single mothers during the Hellish week after one is left by her gambler husband who has left his family in dire straights. They meet as Ray (abandonned wife) is trying to locate her husband at the local Casino. Lila is the other woman, a Mohawk who is wondering around pretty much an empty grief stricken shell because her husband died and her baby was taken away by his Grandmother (allowed in Mohawk society). The women meet as Lila steals Ray’s husbands’ car which is hardly a typical introduction for friendship but manages to transform into that. Lila has been working with smugglers to transport illegal aliens across the Canadian/New York border. She tricks Ray into working with her.
The story is mostly about the two Women and is set into a social back drop of poverty, addiction, racism, conflicting cultures, smuggling, illegal immigration. That’s a full load already and pretty amazing since the story centers mostly around the characters’ personal problems.
Ray’s two children, a 15 year old son and a 5 year old are very sensitivitely portrayed. The oldest son is given huge amounts of responsibility for someone his age, typical of Children of D, as he takes care of his younger brother and rather woefully tries to come up with the money lost by his Father. His brother is too young to pay much attention. You don’t see these boys out with their buddies. They hang out together and with the TV. If you live constantly with the anxiety and threat of loss of a parent or your house you are less likely to be able to go out and play.
Repression of Rage and Desperation are constantly seething below the surface of this movie and toward the end dissolve into a really wonderful redemption for all characters. I’m no movie critic but the acting seems to be awesome all around and I suspect that the Direction is stunning.
Really great movie.
Link to LA Times review:
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-river1-2008aug01,0,2791629.story
rozen River, a Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize Winner, is an incredible movie about two women who come together as single mothers during the Hellish week after one is left by her gambler husband who has left his family in dire straights. They meet as Ray (abandonned wife) is trying to locate her husband at the local Casino. Lila is the other woman, a Mohawk who is wondering around pretty much an empty grief stricken shell because her husband died and her baby was taken away by his Grandmother (allowed in Mohawk society). The women meet as Lila steals Ray’s husbands’ car which is hardly a typical introduction for friendship but manages to transform into that. Lila has been working with smugglers to transport illegal aliens across the Canadian/New York border. She tricks Ray into working with her.
The story is mostly about the two Women and is set into a social back drop of poverty, addiction, racism, conflicting cultures, smuggling, illegal immigration. That’s a full load already and pretty amazing since the story centers mostly around the characters’ personal problems.
Ray’s two children, a 15 year old son and a 5 year old are very sensitivitely portrayed. The oldest son is given huge amounts of responsibility for someone his age, typical of Children of D, as he takes care of his younger brother and rather woefully tries to come up with the money lost by his Father. His brother is too young to pay much attention. You don’t see these boys out with their buddies. They hang out together and with the TV. If you live constantly with the anxiety and threat of loss of a parent or your house you are less likely to be able to go out and play.
Repression of Rage and Desperation are constantly seething below the surface of this movie and toward the end dissolve into a really wonderful redemption for all characters. I’m no movie critic but the acting seems to be awesome all around and I suspect that the Direction is stunning.
Really great movie.
Link to LA Times review:
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-river1-2008aug01,0,2791629.story
Filed under: Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Uncategorized
According to today’s USA Weekend Magazine, Comedian/Actor Jack Black is a Child of D. He grew up in the Los Angeles area in California and is the product of two Rocket Scientists (Engineers of some sort) who divorced when he was 10 years old. I’ve found sources saying that Black lived with his Mother and with his Father so I’m not sure which. Sounds like the suitcase was his home.
Black has married Tanya Haden who he has known since High School. His wife is the daughter of Jazz musician Charlie Haden and is one of a set of triplet girls all of whom are professional musicians. It sounds as if they are also from a split situation although I can’t tell if Charlie Haden actually ever married their Mother.
Black attended UCLA but dropped out in his Sophomore year to pursue his Entertainment career. Black and Haden met again 15 years after High School and fell in love. They married in 2006 and currently have two children, Sammy and Tommy.
One of Black’s first successful roles was in the movie High Fidelity about a record store clerk. I’ve mentioned the author of High Fidelity before, Nick Hornby, who is a Child of D as well and has written many humorous books that include the subject.
As well as short-term hobbies, his youth was defined by a long-term love of music. His parents suffered a difficult divorce when Black was 10, and he went to live with his mother in Culver City, near MGM Studios, where she rented out rooms to aspiring stars. A number of musicians passed through, instilling in Black a love of rock that finds its voice in the form of Tenacious D, his semi-comedic heavy metal band (who, incidentally, play second only to mega-group Metallica at the Reading Festival next month).
–http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/06/27/bfjack127.xml&page=1
Filed under: Alcoholism, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce
Hope to track this one down: Wah-Wah is an autobiographical/semi-autobiographical movie written and directed by Richart E. Grant. Haven’t even heard of it in the U.S. From a review I read it seems that a young boy must suddenly confront all his parent’s problems (Father’s alcoholism, etc.) after their split. There’s even a Step-Mother loaded into the story, and it’s based on real life events.
Here’s a synopsis from IMBD:
Set at the end of the ’60s, as Swaziland is about to receive independence from Great Britain, the film follows the young Ralph Compton, at 12, through his parents’ traumatic separation, till he’s 14. It is written and directed by Richard E Grant, and based on true events from Richard E Grant’s childhood.
