This is the weekend to see a double feature.
A lot of you have told me you hardly go to the movies any more, and as a reviewer for NickJr.com, trust me – I understand why. Most of what’s out there is definitely not worth paying for, and pretty much anything with Academy Award potential is saved for release late in the year.
So it’s ironic that, after five months of watching a lot – A LOT – of junk, the two films I’ve truly loved this year are both coming out on the same day. In fact, they’re so good, I’ve already seen both of them twice.
Brave may be the best movie ever made about the powerful/fragile/loving/hateful mother-daughter relationship. It shows that mothers only want the best for their daughters, and that daughters need to learn their own lessons and make their own mistakes. It shows what mothers will endure for their daughters, and the lengths daughters will go to for their mothers. It shows that a mother’s instincts to protect her daughter are Mama Bear-like in their ferocity, and that daughters secretly admire the mothers they so desperately try not to be like. And it shows all of this in gorgeous 3D Pixar animation that may have you Googling flights to Scotland and making an appointment with your hairdresser.
With her wild red curls flying, Merida ushers in a whole new generation of Disney princesses. Her strength and confidence are so empowering, she makes the pretty in pink gals look as outdated as the women of Mad Men. It’s hard to imagine her on the Disney Princess website page, holding her hands sweetly together. This is a girl who’s usually got one hand holding a bow, and the other positioning an arrow.
Has there ever been a Disney princess who had the nerve to tell her mother, “I’d rather die than be like you?” (Okay, the mothers of most Disney princesses are already dead, but that’s another story.) It’s a cringe-worthy moment because we’ve all been there – many of us on both sides – and it brings the movie into a real, relatable place where living happily ever after is up to us rather than some handsome prince.
I saw Brave with my 19-year-old daughter, and we both cried. She grabbed my arm at one point, and whispered “Mommy.” If my mother had come with us, I would likely have done the same thing. This is a movie that celebrates that incomparable, uniquely complicated female bond, and I encourage everyone to see it to show the studios the box office power of a female heroine and to also remind you that if your children follow their own dreams rather than yours, well, it’s not the end of the world.
Speaking of which …
Surprisingly uplifting and equally powerful is Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, the latest addition to the apocalypse genre – a genre for which I seem to have a real fondness (Melancholia, Take Shelter, Another Earth to a degree), which is actually a weird thing I think I should explore at some point.
Anyway, when the movie opens, Earth is three weeks away from being hit by an asteroid. Steve Carell plays Dodge, an average Joe kind of insurance salesman whose wife literally runs out on him after hearing the announcement on the car radio. Alone, despondent and floundering, he ends up meeting Penny (Keira Knightley) and the story takes on a road trip buddy movie flavor, as they try to make their way to her family and to the (first) one who got away from him.
The movie has moments that are hilarious but I’d feel uncomfortable calling it a comedy. What makes it so special is its fascinating depiction of how people would be likely to spend their last days on Earth. This is not the time to check off a bucket list – flights are grounded, cell phones aren’t working, gas is pretty much gone. So there are those who are partying like it’s 1999, giving up fears and inhibitions, giving in to vices. There are those who are trying to do business as usual like Dodge’s cleaning woman who gets offended when he tells her she doesn’t have to come back next week. And then there’s Dodge himself – well-intentioned, straight-laced and wanting desperately not to die alone.
Steve Carell and Keira Knightley may make an unlikely couple but Armageddon creates strange bedfellows. I found myself totally rooting for them and half-hoping that the asteroid would miraculously miss the Earth.
How would you spend your last days on Earth? How are you spending your days now? Seeking a Friend … is one of those movies that gets under your skin and makes you confront the hard questions. I can’t stop thinking about it.
Really, when it comes down to it, nothing would be important to me during those days other than people. Family. Friends. Would it make a difference at that point if I didn’t get a chance to read the latest John Irving novel or if I missed the season finale of Revenge? It certainly wouldn’t matter if I hadn’t gotten around to writing the book I always wanted to write – there’d be no one left to read it anyway. And the cartons of photos I never managed to put into albums? Asteroids don’t play favorites when it comes to format. I would, though, gorge myself on Sprinkles and never touch the vacuum again.
I guess the point is to savor and make the best of every day. So if (God forbid) an asteroid leaves us with three weeks left, we can simply enjoy that time with the people who mean the most to us, and not worry about anything else.
In the meantime, all we can do is pursue our dreams, let our children pursue theirs – and try to be brave.
I’m french and in my country “brave” had a translation as “rebellious” (rebellious) and it is not yet in cinemas.