Transformation

Last night I went in search of something light and amusing to watch.  Depression was looming over my head, and although I'd had a good cry, I needed something to pull me up a little bit, something to make me laugh.  I ended up with The Kid. 

Now, this movie has its flaws, but you just have to suspend your disbelief and let yourself flow along.  Bruce Willis plays Russ with just the right touch, a man who's about to turn forty, who thinks he has put his childhood behind him and overcome his past by becoming hard and ruthless.  He is visited by The Kid, himself at eight years old, and is - after much kicking and thrashing and resisting - transformed by the experience. 

I cried at the ending, of course.  There's just so much in this movie that speaks to me. 

Firstly there's his coming around to acceptance of The Kid, which we all need to do.  That wounded child that still lives inside.  And as much work as I've done in this area over the past 40 years, I still have big-meany parts that judge the small-weany parts.

Secondly there's the issue of the dog.  It's highly symbolic in the movie that adult Russ doesn't have a dog.  It's high on the list of criteria for The Kid, who concludes that he grows up to be a chick-less, dog-less loser.  He doesn't like his grownup self anymore than the grownup likes the kid.  But later in the movie we find out why he doesn't have a dog. 

There was an incident with a dog, when The Kid was eight, and he tried to save the dog from being cruelly tormented.  He failed.  He not only failed to save the dog, he lost the fight, and got in trouble for fighting, and his gravely-ill mother had to come down to the school to get him.  Which caused his father to rage at him.  Not just rage.  Blaming rage.  His father imprinted him in the span of a few moments, with both the entire weight of guilt at his mother's impending death, and a heavy prison of emotional suppression.  He failed the dog.  He failed his mother.  He failed his father.  Result: total emotional shutdown.  A closed heart.  And a tic in his eye.

I know about fear of not being able to protect those you love.  I totally understand how it could make you shut down your heart.  Sometimes it's easier not to care.  It starts with pretending you don't care.  And eventually, enough pretending can actually sever you from the parts that care.  You think you're better off.  You think it's better not to feel that anguish.  But you don't realize you've also severed your joy, your ability to love and be heartful.

The transformation in this movie is so satisfying.  Grownup Russ holds The Kid while he cries, and he is finally able to cry himself.  His heart is healed.  And he is able to go to the woman he loves and make things right.  The final proof of transformation?  He goes to her with a puppy in his arms. 

I'm getting all choked up retelling the story.  Yeah, I'm just a big mushmellow.  Geez, from my telling here, you'd never know that this movie was a comedy.  It's actually quite funny.  No really!  I just cry at the drop of a hat, it's just my way.

And I realized most of my favorite movies have some kind of transformation in them.  Some kind of heart opening, and soul healing.  I looked through my DVD's and VHS tapes and there are a LOT of transformation type movies.  Of course, they usually masquerade as other things - comedies or mysteries or whatnot - but it's the transformation of a character that makes the movie special to me. 

I think it's a need to TRY to believe in humanity.  I need to find hope ... to believe that change from heartlessness to heartfulness is possible.  I get so discouraged and depressed - and angry - at the heartlessness in the world.  So I harvest these movies and books and stories and websites ... trying to build a little garden of hope.  Trying to believe that humanity isn't better off just gone.  A failed experiment.  The bitter voice in my head says, yes ... "nuke it from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure".  But there's this other, very small voice from my soul ... that votes for hope. 

Comments

[Nancy]

There are moments in life when all that exists is hope. Or there certainly have been in mine. Hope is what gets me out of bed in the morning. :) I've made a note to pick up this movie. Thanks...

[David]

I think I'm drawn to Roberto Assagioli and Viktor Frankl as pwesonality theorists primarily because of their focus on the transcendant. And one reason I am more strongly drawn to Frankl's "From Death Camp to Existentialism" (in other—later—editions "Man's Search for Meaning") than probably any other psychoanalytical modeling of personality precisely because transformation is presented as almost normative.

I don't think Hollyweird could make a movie of Frankl's life, though. *sigh*