Web Theologian

Any watching of movies on planes for me is dangerous.  This American Life actually has a story about it, and my personal experience supports it.  Watching the Social Network I immediately arrived home and made Karin watch it with me because I thought it could be the best movie of all time.  Needless to say on land it did not measure up.  There is something about floating near heaven that makes one release and embrace in a way we must learn and struggle through to on the ground.  To the Social Networks credit I also rarely watch movies through headphones except on planes and the soundtrack that Trent Reznor created I do believe could be one of the best of all time.

This is Where I Leave You, with all of the subplot is a story of a midlife crisis and to me points out how the midlife crisis today is very different then that experienced by men previously.  Yes the disconnected marriage that leads to an affair, the romance with the high school flame…even the sports car is in common, but there are two things that jumped out at me…one more then other.

The lesbian theme was silly and underdeveloped to me, if anything it made is seem that old women who lose their husband choose that, which I think could lessen a lesbian cause for some one has been born that way.  This is only highlighted by the statement when the brother says, “What one morning mom woke up and decided she was a lesbian.”  Now there could have been a larger backstory as there often is with folks who have been closeted when they were younger, but the movie did not even attempt to develop that and made it cheap.

The theme that actually stuck out more to me was the midlife crisis tied with the timing of having a baby.  Perhaps it is because of my personal experience that I am struck by this but it is strange.  This theme of the forever boy, which a lot of Wes Anderson movies have been accused of exploring is tied along side with fatherhood.  You have children as a symbol of adulthood, you have them and you are an adult, you don’t and you are a child. This does not seem accurate to me. But I do appreciate that there is a theme of children need not be a hindrance to love, in and out of marriage, with or without them, if you have love that is a lot.