“It’s hard being a family.”
– KW [Lauren Ambrose]
The movie allowed the story to remain and properly reached into its depths. The terror and the brilliance of it were well preserved. The soundtrack was entirely intuitive and young.
And the thing I love about this movie (and the book preceding)
is it shows mistakes. Everyone in the story is constantly making mistakes. They suffer from moments of weakness, from lapse of judgment, from too-big emotional reign, from selfishness. And the mistakes affect the outcomes of the situations in serious and confusing ways. This story is about love and about remorse. It’s about learning. It’s about not having the answers and making mistakes even when you mean well.
The ecstasy of love and community was there [sleeping in a pile]
The reach of someone’s frustrated anger was there [concern for Carol and his ability to destroy everything]
The resolution wasn’t there and that’s what makes this story so brilliant. Because though Max is folding into his mother’s arms at the end, we know that he isn’t going to be happy forever. Life and circumstance will come for him and he’ll be responsive to that. He will hate again and be selfish again and break someone’s heart again because that’s what happens. Eventually he may learn how to hold things up higher,
but it takes practice. And I’m not sure perfection in happiness is a reachable goal.
We’re all full of blemishes.
And though we can wish for a life of ecstasy, people (and ourselves) are going to make mistakes and deny us that. So we must feel and hold these mistakes, then release them upwards as balloons and move on.
V'Artichoke 