I've Got a Crush On: the movie Parenthood

Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.

Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

This movie became an instant classic to me the moment I saw it as a teenager. Years later, at 35 years old, it still remains a top ten favorite of mine, a movie worth revisiting yearly. The first time I saw Parenthood it represented a dream to me: that someone from a fucked up place could make a family able to love one another and thrive. Who best to represent childhood pain with a friendly face than Steve Martin and this movie family of his: the Buckman's? One of my favorite, most beloved faces in Hollywood, Steve Martin is true genius. His gifts are prodigious- the turns simple lines into heartwarming moments of human connection or struggle without souring into a character of himself; a true achievement for a man who primarily plays men who are caricatures of one kind or another, representing a 'type' but pulled from type and made into something unique and entirely entertaining.

In Parenthood Martin was partnered brilliantly with Mary Steenburgen as husband and wife of three children, the oldest who suffers from some kind of anxiety disorder that leads to the hilarious argument in the Principal's office about why their son is so nervous, ending with Gil accusing his wife of smoking pot 'like a chimney' in college. The sweet and steady love between the two- even though obviously stressed throughout the movie- was addictive to me. That is what I wanted. A life like anyone had- one that could and would get messy, complicated and stressful- with a partner to walk through it with, in it with me, for better or worse.

Parenthood extends beyond Gil's immediate family to include a cast of beautifully, hilariously executed characters: Gil's emotionally stunted father, long suffering mother and black sheep brother ( played touchingly by the great F. Murray Abraham from another of my favorite movies, Amadeus ) who brings home a 'surprise' son he named...Cool. There are two other sisters and their extended families and dramas that are included in the movie's plot, and all work together seamlessly in set pieces that are instant classics. There is the Keanu Reeves character who famously says '... they even make you get a license to fish! but any butt reamin' asshole can be a father. ' Joaquin Phoenix ( ' Leaf ' at the time ) plays the deeply troubled son of Gil's sister, with a haunted, intelligent intensity that is a clear foreshadowing of the young man ahead. There is the scene where the lights go out on a large family dinner and someone brings out a vibrator saying ' I found a flashlight! ' to find it buzzing away as the lights go back on. A child asks ' What IS that?' and a crafty adult answers ' An electric ear-cleaner ' to which Grandma remarks ' Oh my that's large!'

The sway between the enormous love of family and the reality of the depth of wounding we can do to one another, and how that is or is not passed on to our children - this is the beating heart of this movie, layered in sweet and laugh out loud scenes of family life.

See it!
( the opening scene alone makes me tear up and laugh, a good indicator
for the entire rest of the movie- or just my neurotic emotional state )