This movie is so worth it.
A teenage girl decides that she'd be better off without her single mother, who's never there anyway, and decides to write her own coming of age story for herself. With a mural-scale board to check off all of the things on her list.
-Be a nerd
-Fall in with the wrong crowd
-Dump former best friend
-Steal money to get a makeover
-Meet a bad boy and lose virginity
-Buy a bus ticket and run away from home
Now go watch it.
Back?
Precious, right? There's a lot of "content," yes, but that's the thing. Its about how unsatisfying the above list made her. What she really wanted was her mother to be there for her. And her mother's story - equally compelling - is much the same, but with a tragic ending. Her mother wasn't there for her either, and she ran away at 17 when she got pregnant. She doesn't want to be that kind of mother, but we subconsciously act in the patterns we learned in childhood. It takes a conscious decision to break those habits. The precious thing is that when she realized how she wasn't there for her daughter, in the same way her mother wasn't there for her, she changed. She discovered the strength to become the mother her daughter needed.
If I have one critique, it's that we don't see where the mother gets her strength from. She needed someone to mother her into maturity, even as an adult. She acts like a teenager all the way through, and at the end we see she's pulled her act together and matured into what her daughter needs. Perhaps her child was enough for her.
It was also odd that the man in the story stole money for her, for her daughter's tuition, because he really cared about her kid (unlike the other man), but when she rebuffed him (very rightly) for stealing, he packed up and left. That was kind of sad. However, I really liked the focus being kept on the mother-daughter relationship. The daughter accused her mother of being there for her "until another guy comes along, and then I'll be invisible," or something similar. The ending implies that the mother set aside her own dating for awhile in order to fully engage with her daughter and to make up for some of their lost time. I think that's amazing.
It's funny to watch the daughter state matter-of-factly that she's starting her rebellious phase or wants to get in with the bad kids. She's such an innocent soul throughout all of the outwardly rebellious things she does (or tries to do). It's odd to see a film with so many blatant rebellious and awful things in it with such a sweet soul as it's center. It was amazing storytelling and a very effective juxtaposition.
All we really want is to be loved, first by our parents, then by our friends. Really loved, not just nodded to while your mom's on the phone or allowed into the party because you brought the tequila. And all the things kids do who are actually being rebellious, and who seem to enjoy it, are still cries for love. Actually most of the things we do are cries for love.
A teenage girl decides that she'd be better off without her single mother, who's never there anyway, and decides to write her own coming of age story for herself. With a mural-scale board to check off all of the things on her list.
-Be a nerd
-Fall in with the wrong crowd
-Dump former best friend
-Steal money to get a makeover
-Meet a bad boy and lose virginity
-Buy a bus ticket and run away from home
Now go watch it.
Back?
Precious, right? There's a lot of "content," yes, but that's the thing. Its about how unsatisfying the above list made her. What she really wanted was her mother to be there for her. And her mother's story - equally compelling - is much the same, but with a tragic ending. Her mother wasn't there for her either, and she ran away at 17 when she got pregnant. She doesn't want to be that kind of mother, but we subconsciously act in the patterns we learned in childhood. It takes a conscious decision to break those habits. The precious thing is that when she realized how she wasn't there for her daughter, in the same way her mother wasn't there for her, she changed. She discovered the strength to become the mother her daughter needed.
If I have one critique, it's that we don't see where the mother gets her strength from. She needed someone to mother her into maturity, even as an adult. She acts like a teenager all the way through, and at the end we see she's pulled her act together and matured into what her daughter needs. Perhaps her child was enough for her.
It was also odd that the man in the story stole money for her, for her daughter's tuition, because he really cared about her kid (unlike the other man), but when she rebuffed him (very rightly) for stealing, he packed up and left. That was kind of sad. However, I really liked the focus being kept on the mother-daughter relationship. The daughter accused her mother of being there for her "until another guy comes along, and then I'll be invisible," or something similar. The ending implies that the mother set aside her own dating for awhile in order to fully engage with her daughter and to make up for some of their lost time. I think that's amazing.
It's funny to watch the daughter state matter-of-factly that she's starting her rebellious phase or wants to get in with the bad kids. She's such an innocent soul throughout all of the outwardly rebellious things she does (or tries to do). It's odd to see a film with so many blatant rebellious and awful things in it with such a sweet soul as it's center. It was amazing storytelling and a very effective juxtaposition.
All we really want is to be loved, first by our parents, then by our friends. Really loved, not just nodded to while your mom's on the phone or allowed into the party because you brought the tequila. And all the things kids do who are actually being rebellious, and who seem to enjoy it, are still cries for love. Actually most of the things we do are cries for love.