A hundred poignant, human moments strung together, but none more powerful for me than the half dozen of these older women standing on the edge of a lake, alternately shouting out into the wilderness
“We’re alive!”
and
“We’re alone!”
with the only answer the sound of their own voices echoing back.
An unbelievable amount of emotion, conveyed with such kindness and restraint. Easy to overlook the impeccable craft when it’s used to tell such a gentle story, but don’t be fooled! This movie is complex and beautiful, and the story it tells about friendship, home, parents, and failure is vital.
Rewatch for me, first time watch for my wife. 💖
So effortlessly funny, and so much characterization packed into every scene. The contrast of Healy’s keys, comb, and glasses lined up neatly in a row early in the film, with March pouring dozens of different types of mixed up bullets out of a cookie jar in the middle of a fire fight later… wow. Also, Nixon in the pool and March’s shrieked “No! No!”
I love the way Eggers treats the physical violence as realistically as the religious beliefs.
Certified Tragedy™
Holy fucking shit. I laughed and cried and laughed and then cried and laughed again and I checked the time stamp and I was less than 15 minutes into the movie.
I lost my mom a little more than a year ago and this movie managed to make me feel so much less alone in my grief, so much more at peace with the way that being an adult feels like a series of huge fuckups that I dove headfirst into or narrowly avoided.
It feels like I watched a movie someone made just for me, and I feel so special, and seen, and known.
Watch this, and think about how soft the conflict is. The characters are overwhelmingly supportive and kind to each other, at least as much as they can be given their circumstances, and the bulk of the conflict is external. It’s warm, and it’s sweet, but it’s full of melancholy and it’s still so compelling.
What a gift that my boys and I can put on a movie (ostensibly) for children and we’re treated this well. No joke, some of the…
