BEFORE: OK, it's finally time to start my Mother's Day programming - past entries in this field date back to "Baby Boom" in 2011, "The Butler" in 2015 (because, umm, First Ladies are usually mothers?), and then of course I really got in the swing of things in 2017 with the film "Mother's Day", starring, among others, Julia Roberts, who carries over today from "The Normal Heart".
Since then, I've been on a tear - who can forget 2018's trilogy of "I, Tonya", "Two Weeks" and "One True Thing"? (well, to be fair, I kind of did - I had to go back and check my notes...). 2019 brought "Tully" around on Mother's day, and in 2020 it was "We Don't Belong Here", "Other People" and "Wine Country", and last year my film of choice for the holiday was "Otherhood".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Beautiful Boy" (Movie #3,553)
THE PLOT: A drug-addicted teenage boy shows up unexpectedly at his family's home on Christmas Eve.
AFTER: Yes, this is a film set on Christmas Eve - mea culpa, because my process involves going up and down my watchlist, looking for appropriate films for Mother's Day, without digging TOO deep into the plotline for each one. I just earmarked "Parallel Mothers" as a possible future relevant film, and the same filmmaker made "All About My Mother", so there might be something there for next year. When I found THREE films that seemed relevant to the topic of mothers, THREE films that all linked together, naturally I jumped at that and didn't look back. So, this is a Mother's Day film by way of Christmas. My Christmas dance card is usually full anyway, and I can't always control what the lucky yuletide film or films will be, that really depends on where Halloween programming ends, and how many slots are left in the year at that point, that's still out of my control for 2022 BUT this is why I keep at least a dozen Christmas films on the watchlist, the goal will be to land on at least one of them in December.
Amyway, a lot of films have mothers in them - if it hadn't been this one starting off the weekend, it could have been "Because I Said So" or "I Don't Know How She Does It" or "Lovely & Amazing" or "Secrets & Lies". At some point or another, I may get to all of these, but there are for sure plenty more choices out there. The first of this year's three films is about the lengths a mother will go to while protecting her son, who apparently escaped out of drug rehab in order to spend Christmas Eve with his mother. She may have made a joking reference on the phone about how all she wanted for Christmas was to have him home, and he might have taken this literally.
The point of the film is that all addicts are liars, they will do or say whatever they need to say in order to be able to use again. Holly Burns KNOWS this, and her son Ben freely admits this, how he can't be trusted. BUT, rather than drive him straight back to the rehab facility, which she should have done, Ben's stepfather relents, and allows him to spend just ONE day with the family, provided he's kept under strict supervision, Mom's rules, he's never left alone, and he goes back bright and early the next day.
What follows is a VERY long Christmas Eve, so I'm assuming he showed up first thing in the morning, because what follows seems like about 30 hours worth of activities. There's a rehearsal for the Christmas pageant, lunch, decorating the tree, last-minute shopping, buying a nick jacket to wear at Christmas Eve mass, then of course a quick NA meeting, dinner, church itself, then there's the inevitable run-in with past drug associates, a pet-napping, tracking down the party who stole the family dog, and then once you factor in time for searching for the dog, looking up old drug dealers and associates, negotiations, regret, recriminations, etc., well let's just say it's a full day.
I won't say this is a HAPPY Christmas-time movie, quite the opposite - no spoilers here but there are issues raised about parental responsibility, personal responsibility, drug use, mature themes, stolen pets and such. How far should a parent go to keep their child safe? At what point do they stop forgiving or covering up their child's mistakes, and maybe let them sink or swim on their own? The mama bird has to drop the baby bird out of the nest at some point, and most of the chicks are going to fly, but once in a while, there's one that's going to hit the ground, it's the law of averages. That does not justify keeping the chick in the nest forever, that much is clear.
Specifically, with regards to addicts, the film may have a point about how they're always lying, I don't really have much personal experience with this, but then what do you DO with that information? What happens when you learn too much about your kid's behavior while they were using? Will you go down those dark roads with him when he returns home, and he's surrounded by all those old triggers? I guess you just handle it as best you can, there's no real road map except to rely on other people who have been down similar roads, and maybe they saved their kids, maybe they didn't.
Looking back through old posts, I've just been reminded that May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the U.S. - see that? I thought I was getting off-track, but once I check the special observances for the month, I'm really right where I need to be. I already dealt with bipolar disorder this week in "Infinitely Polar Bear", and grief, depression and suicidal thoughts in "Reservation Road". And today it's substance use disorder, which is classified as a mental disorder, which leads to a person's inability to control their substance use, and is linked to addiction. Certain conditions like depression, when left untreated, can lead to substance abuse, and in turn, substance abuse can lead to further symptoms of mental illness. This message brought to you by SAMHSA....
Or you can just do what Holly Burns did, blame the doctor who gave your son painkillers after a sports accident and told him they were non-addictive, which wasn't true at all.
Also starring Lucas Hedges (last seen in "Honey Boy"), Courtney B. Vance (last seen in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), Kathryn Newton (last seen in "Lady Bird"), Rachel Bay Jones, David Zaldivar, Alexandra Park, Michael Esper (last seen in "Frances Ha"), Tim Guinee (last seen in "Harriet"), Myra Lucretia Taylor (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Kristin Griffith (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), Jack Davidson, Mia Fowler, Jakari Fraser, Cameron Roberts, Jeff Auer, Henry Stram, Emily Cass McDonnell (last seen in "Marriage Story"), Jocelyn Bioh, Gamze Ceylan, Marquise Vilson, Michelle Hedges, Karen Willock, Leon Addison Brown (last seen in "Music of the Heart"), Bevan Thomas, Crystal Bock, Melissa van der Schyff, Rosalie Tenseth, Michael David Baldwin.
RATING: 6 out of 10 sheep costumes for the pageant
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