This Week’s Movie
Boyhood
I loved Boyhood. We watched it almost in one sitting with only a short break and it was so real. It’s fiction, a scripted story, but because of its pace, it seems like a documentary. Mason, the boy, is amazing, but there is something satisfying about watching the parent actors, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawk, age too over the twelve years. Being a mother, I was reminded of situations when my son was a teenager.
Boyhood is considered groundbreaking, but there is some precedent in Michael Apted’s Up series. Apted has filmed the same group of people every 7 years since there were seven years old; the latest installment released several years ago captures them at the age of 56. The difference is these are individual interviews about what has happened in their lives since the last filming and they are great social and life history. Boyhood creates the daily life of one young man continuously over 12 years. It is fiction, but feels true. Up is real people, but it is their reflections on events, not the events themselves. I’m a fan of both.
One critic I read also examined the role of Mason’s sister, Samantha, and stated that she went from being quite vocal in the early years to getting quieter and less present and that this indicated something about the upbringing of girls. So I watched Samantha more closely than I might have otherwise, but don’t agree with that critic’s assessment. Samantha is not the focal point of the film to begin with and I don’t think she got lost.
This Week’s Book
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
I have now read several novels by Ian McEwan and find his writing to be concise and pointed. Compared to some authors, his works are short to moderate in length. There are no long descriptions, but rather short, pithy sentences that conjure up in the reader’s mind a person’s appearance or delineate a character’s feelings. He is particularly good at shame and embarrassment. Judge Fiona Maye in this his latest novel is walking home from work contemplating her feelings about her husband’s recent departure.
“She went slowly along Theobald’s Road, still holding off the moment of her return, wondering again whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability, whether it was not contempt and ostracism she feared, as in the novels of Flaubert and Tolstoy, but pity. To be the object of general pity was also a form of social death. The nineteenth century was closer than most women thought. To be caught enacting her part in a cliché showed poor taste rather than a moral lapse. Restless husband in one last throw, brave wife maintaining her dignity, younger woman remote and blameless. And she had thought her acting days ended on a summer lawn, just before she fell in love.”
Childless Fiona is an intriguing character; I was drawn into her personal and professional life and the family law cases she must adjudicate. Although I figured out much of the ending, I could sympathize with the approach she took in the Jehovah’s Witness case, the crux of the novel. She is an appealingly imperfect human.
Sweet Treats
Valentine’s Day is this week which brings to mind candy hearts and flowers, but especially chocolate. When I was a child, candy was a special treat and fancy boxes of chocolates something rare. I have fond and tasty recollections of the special candies my parents received for their birthdays. My grandparents would send them each a box of Gilbert Chocolates on the appropriate days in February and April.
The box was white and more square than rectangular with a green banner on it. This was the era of milk chocolate and Gilbert Chocolates were milk chocolate that had tiny bits of nuts in the chocolate surrounding the caramel or cream center. The favorite collection in our house was called Panama. With four children eager to share in them, I’m not sure how many pieces my folks actually got for themselves! I was pleased to discover that the Gilbert company, founded in 1900, is still doing business in Jackson, Michigan, with an expanded line including truffles, fudge, dark chocolate, and of course, the Panama Collection. The web is wonderful!
