Culture, Sports, Writing…or whatever
“When we were kids, my brother and I used to pretend that we were heroes. The only ones who could save the day. But maybe we’re just the regular people; the ones who get saved.” –Aidan Bloom, Wish I Was Here
“Hey Sol, do you ever wonder at what point you just got to say fuck it man? Like when you gotta stop living up here, and start living down here?” “It’s 7:30 in the morning, dawg.”–B. Rabbit and Sol, 8 mile
“So what are you doing now that you’ve graduated?” –Every adult in my life the past four months
Yesterday, my friend and Twitter personality @perrykos tweeted this at me.
So instead of finishing packing for Atlanta, I decided to go see it. He was right; it is my kind of movie. As asked, here are my thoughts:
-Some movies are made for fun and to blow stuff up. Other movies are meant to capture the human condition and express some keen insight about our world. Then there’s movies like Wish I Was Here, that isn’t concerned with legacy or character conventions or Hollywood success; it’s meant to communicate emotions and moments. Let me explain: Wish I Was Here is about Aidan Bloom, a semi-allegorical Zach Braff who’s fledgling as an actor and dissatisfied with life. He swears freely in front of his children—so much that a Costco-sized Swear Jar is full of his curses—disavows his Jewish heritage, and has a stilted relationship with his brother and father. His wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) experiences sexual harassment at work where she plugs numbers into spread sheets, a shitty job necessary to pay bills and feed the family. Nobody, to start, is that happy in this movie.
-Then, Wish I Was Here changes and gains momentum when Aidan’s father’s cancer returns and this fractured extended family is forced to come together. Previously broken, they adventure down a spiritual journey to fix themselves, despite themselves. They attempt to rediscover happiness.
-There are moments in life nobody warns you about: I imagine it as some unexpected gust of wind pushes you off the cliff and you fall. Nobody warns you because they can’t—they’ve regained their feet and moved on. Either that or they’d rather forget. I have to think your father dying and giving up on your dreams is one of those moments. To be a bit personal, graduating from college is another.
-Life is funny because it feels like two contradictory thoughts about it exist in my head at all times: 1) Everybody seems to know what they’re doing or supposed to do, myself included, and that life has numerous branching paths, each with slightly varying workloads and emotional stresses, and all you have to decide is what road to travel upon. 2) Nobody knows what they’re doing. Everybody pretends and perpetually searches for some greater meaning, especially as 20-somethings. Life is a constantly-shifting terrain with no nearby cartographer and no tools to plot where you’ve been and where you’re going. You might find temporary asylum, but that construction will crumble if you stay too long. Because of this, everyone is mostly wandering.
-Dreaming is a pretty modern concept; well, dreaming awake that is. Our lives are mostly satisfied, in a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs-type of way. I sometimes fantasize what it would be like to live like 500 or a 1,000 years ago, when nothing was knowable outside of your immediate vicinity. I don’t think they worried too much about their brands or blogs or Twitter followers or fulfilling their creative, spiritual needs. That’s a pretty 21st century/millennial problem, isn’t it?
-Older generations mock millennials because this is our “BIG PROBLEM” (and they usually present it in that mocking, deprecating way): What do I do with my life? What will bring me the most satisfaction? What will make me happy? But if this is our problem, shouldn’t we deal with it? America’s Greatest Generation has led us to this point, have they not?
-All these thoughts and ideas are woven into the DNA of Wish I Was Here. Aidan Bloom’s father provides money for Aidan’s children to attend private Jewish school and insists on obsolete ideas of work and patriarchy. Everyone else in the movie outside the Blooms seem to be pretty fine with life. Sarah and Aidan ask one another “When was the happiest you’ve seen me?” in a way that indicates they’re not sure what makes them happy anymore. Aidan keeps working to jumpstart his dead-end acting career because he believes he shouldn’t give up on his dreams.
-I like a lot of moments in this movie, but one stands out: Aidan brings his children out to some red rocks formation in the Californian desert because it’s the “greatest place on earth.” He gets his kids to stand atop these rocks with him, their arms wide open looking like they’re waiting for something spiritual to strike them. Aidan admits to his children he loves this place because he had the greatest epiphany of his life here and it’s transparent he’s searching for another one. They camp here for the night, and after his children fall asleep, Aidan tends the fire, still searching. The next morning his son Tucker asks, “Did you have your epiphany, Dad?” “No,” Aidan replies.
-Little movie-nerd aside here: Shots like that one and how the sun outlines Sarah as she’s surfing near movie’s end highlight Zach Braff’s wondrous eye as a director. It feels he’s more concerned with accurately capturing these moments and emotions than creating an appealing movie for everyone (especially critics). Also, still great at producing his own cinematic soundtracks.
–Wish I Was Here might be a bit heavy- and ham-handed for some, but @perrykos knows me—I liked this movie a good bit. It hits the right tender spots and ends optimistically, but not necessarily upbeat. In the end, we’re all still wanderers with some vague notion of where we’re going, but certain knowledge of where we’ve been.
[a] millennial reservations 
Pingback: Cinéma vérité: Explaining 2014 through films | [a] millennial reservations