Toni Collette – Bitch Flicks

When Can You Laugh at Suicide?: ‘A Long Way Down’

Suicide is no laughing matter, but we try. If it’s not a heavy drama or inspirational story telling you to stop and watch the sunset, stop and smell the roses, and the like, making a film about suicide requires a light touch and buckets of understanding and sensitivity. As a comedy plot, it only seems to work when sensitivity is disposed of completely. Suicide has been a successful plot for dark comedies, most notably ‘Heathers’ and ‘Harold and Maude’, which are full of irony, satire, insight and meditation. But ‘A Long Way Down’, a British film based on the bestselling novel by Nick Hornby, is not a dark comedy

Suicide is no laughing matter, but we try.

If it’s not a heavy drama or inspirational story telling you to stop and watch the sunset, stop and smell the roses and the like, making a film about suicide requires a light touch and buckets of understanding and sensitivity.

As a comedy plot, it only seems to work when sensitivity is disposed of completely. Suicide has been a successful plot for dark comedies, most notably Heathers and Harold and Maude, which are full of irony, satire, insight and meditation.

But A Long Way Down, a British film based on the bestselling novel by Nick Hornby, author of About a Boy and High Fidelity, is not a dark comedy (through its Wikipedia page suggests otherwise). Instead, it’s a light comedy that wears its life-changing intentions on its sleeve and comes across too obvious to be genuine.

The story begins when four very different people meet on a roof, intending to commit suicide

The film follows four people of varying ages who meet when they all try to commit suicide on New Year’s Eve. The first we meet is Martin Sharp (Pierce Brosnan), a disgraced talk show host jailed for a liaison with a 15-year-old girl (ridiculously he claims she looked 25). As his relationships with his wife and child were ruined by the scandal and he has becomes widely hated and unemployable, he plans to throw himself off a building. At the top, he meets Jess (Imogen Poots), Maureen (Toni Collette), and JJ (Aaron Paul), who had the same idea.

Politician’s daughter and club kid Jess impulsively decides to jump after being dumped by Chaz, a character so unnecessary that after one early scene, he is never mentioned again. Maureen is an anxious, religious woman existing in a world she considers crass (as exemplified by Jess), who refuses to engage with pop culture or create a life for herself outside of caring for her son. Her grown son, Matty, has severe cerebral palsy and requires constant care. Rounding out the group, JJ is a pizza delivery boy and washed-up musician who tells the group he has brain cancer so they’ll take him seriously.

Decisions in the film seem less guided by character or logic than by a map of where the plot should go to hit from point A to B. In a chain of events that would never happen in real life, the group bizarrely form a makeshift family and convince each other to stay alive until Valentine’s Day. In quick, fragmented episodes, they become the target of a media frenzy, go on a beach holiday together to escape and return to London, where hardly anything happens until the film ends and everyone’s fine. In the midst, there’s an intriguing story suggested, as the foursome inspires others to reconsider their plans for suicide by lying to the press and saying they were stopped by an angel, but the thread is quickly dropped and never returned to.

Director Pascal Chaumeil has produced a film that’s pretty to look at, and tries to be aspirational and life-changing, but ends up more being more offensive than anything else. It’s particularly irritating when a film with such sloppy storytelling and such a gross inability to create characters that feel like flesh and blood (instead of quip generators) is used in such a manipulative manner to try force an epiphany in its viewers. It’s possible A Long Way Down has good intentions; it certainly has a positive message, but it doesn’t feel like the filmmakers really put their hearts into it. The film has a lot of good points, for the most part–it’s funny and enjoyable, it hosts several capable performances, and is glossy and fluffy enough to feel like a quality picture. But it’s completely tone deaf.

The group forget their problems by goofing off together

The story aimlessly moves between characters, whiplashing from corny moments of the group splashing around in the ocean together to close-ups of the characters looking off sadly into the distance with little coherence. By the end, it’s suggested that suicidal depression can be completely overcome by a tropical vacation, goofing off and forming a wacky inter-generational friendships. Harold and Maude seems to be successful version of what the film is aiming for: an unlikely connection between two people that a gives a young person a new lease on life.

The problem with portraying a complex issue like depression in a film is that it makes it difficult to create characters that feel universally “likable,” an oft-cited necessity for a successful film. A viewer with no sympathy or personal experience is liable to find characters with clear mental health problems like Jess and JJ irritating and self-indulgent for complaining about their lack of what others might consider real problems. The film tries to counter this possibility with first person narrative, a tactic that allows the viewer a look into the characters’ heads; however, these narrations provide little else besides an opportunity to include some witty, classically Hornby lines cherry-picked from his book.

In addition, the film refuses to take Jess’s depression seriously. She clearly has some mental health issues, as she wishes she were invisible, appears slightly sociopathic and unable to relate to other people and filter out inappropriate speech, and even stalks a boyfriend to the point where he fears for his life. Add to this her severe alienation from her parents and her missing sister, the golden child, and she comes off as the most developed, relatable character. Still, her problems are played down and attributed to her merely being a dramatic teenager. It’s the same tendency we’ve seem in other media, to regard any problems felt by a privileged young woman as “first world” or “rich white girl problems.” Instead of showing us that Jess does have mental health problems despite her privileged background, she’s portrayed as a poor little rich girl who makes problems for herself.

Jess stalks the others around the city to make sure they’re following the pact

There is also a desire between the characters to give one specific reason for their suicidal intentions and for the most part it’s very easy for them to do. Martin has his blighted reputation, Maureen has the burden of caring for Matty, and Jess, because Chaz doesn’t love her. The lone exception is JJ and much his arc through the film centers around the lie he tells the others to get them to take him seriously (that he has cancer) and the accompanying depression of not having a reason for being depressed. In the last act, the other characters finally take him seriously when he goes back to the tower roof to commit suicide but any meaningful character development or recovery is overshadowed in favor of an ill-thought-out romantic relationship with Jess. The relationship comes out of nowhere towards the film’s end (they do not get together in the book), suggesting the filmmakers couldn’t imagine a platonic relationship between young attractive male and female characters, even when they appear to emotionally vulnerable for a serious relationship.

However, real-life people are more complex than that and there are often many reasons why someone might consider suicide, as well as biological and social factors, such as what support system they have in place. It is rare that it can be so easily reduced to a sentence. Rather than portray the characters as learning they are being reductive, even with JJ’s second suicide attempt, the film itself produces characters who can be easily reduced to types (Martin is slimy, Jess is manic, Maureen is restrained and JJ is a would-be rocker) and scarcely gives us any reason to see them in three dimensions. The characters’ back stories are so glossed over and devoid of context, that it’s unclear what is motivating them most of the time. For example, there is no explanation of why Martin’s children do not factor into his decision to commit suicide or why Maureen does not have the support of her family, any friends or of Matty’s father.

By the ending, on New Year’s Eve of the next year, everyone seems fixed. They still talk, but less like a support group helping each other stay afloat than four people that can barely remember why they felt so hopeless a year ago. Like I said, maybe that message has moved some viewers. It’s true that Depression is like that. You find yourself so desperate you can’t imagine living a second longer and then one day, much later, you look back and feel like a different person.

But A Long Way Down promises an unequivocally happy movie ending. These people are capital F- fixed, they’ve been in the trenches together, but they’ll never be up on the ledge again. There’s no reason to keep worrying about them or an acknowledgement of the reality that depression is a mental illness that can recur again and again. Though Jess and JJ mention being in therapy, which suggests their mental upkeep is a constant process, it doesn’t seem as important to them as the happily ever after of their romance.

At the last minute an obligatory romance develops between Jess and JJ — At the last minute, an obligatory romance develops between Jess and JJ

Likewise, Martin and Maureen’s stories are played as if they’re cured. Sadly for character development, the resolutions for both their stories take place off-screen and are never detailed. Though Martin’s reputation and job prospects are forever destroyed and people call him a pervert in the street, all is well when he gives up worrying about everything else to spend time with his kids.

Through grotesquely underdeveloped, Maureen appears to be a fascinating character, with a life we rarely see onscreen. She is raising a special needs son alone, worried about his future and burdened by the responsibility, all of which make her a complex character with an intriguing story of her own stuffed into a meandering flick where she is allowed little onscreen development.

From what we see, her life magically sorts itself out though Maureen’s routine barely changes. She saves Matty from a possibly fatal heart attack and realizes her son needs her, but of course, the burden of being his sole carer was the main reason she felt suicidal to begin with. Other than that, all she needed to fix her life was to join a quiz team and get a boyfriend.

In my opinion, A Long Way Down could have been a satisfying film. Framing it as a serious and subtly meaningful film, with black comedy to lighten the mood, could have saved it.

The core premise, of a bunch of strangers coming together, and helping each other have a better future is fairly classic and has proven itself to be a creatively fruitful jumping off point in the past. But it’s not handled capably here.

Martin, Maureen, Jess and JJ form a non-suicide pact: stay alive until Valentine’s Day

Still, I could be reading the whole thing wrong. Maybe approaching suicide with a feather-light touch has made the story more accessible and even cheered some honestly depressed real-life people. It’s possible to see how it could be moving or even inspiring that everyone gets a happy ending. But I’m a cynical person, I like my comedies dark, so A Long Way Down isn’t for me. But maybe it can help you.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

‘Enough Said’: The Ex-Wife, the Masseuse, and Her Lover

James Gandolfini as Albert and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva

This is a guest post by Heather Brown.

The only other Nicole Holofcener film I had seen before Enough Said (2013) was Walking and Talking (1996), a delightful indie movie about Gen X-ers trying to navigate love and friendship in NYC. Though there are many fans of the movies she made in between these two—and many compelling reviews—I wasn’t sure I needed to hurry up and watch them. I figured that I, like many viewers, pretty well know that rich, white people have problems just like the rest of us. Granted, most of us generally slog through life without quandaries like having to worry about why the maid insists on putting the hairbrush in the silverware drawer. But now that I’ve seen Holofcener’s latest you can bet that I’ll be moving other films like Please Give (2010) and Lovely and Amazing (2001) up on my Netflix queue.

Enough Said is set against the backdrop of people in L.A. with economic and social privilege that goes unremarked upon, but Holofcener does not dwell on these factors and instead shines a light on the flaws and vulnerabilities of middle-aged single parents in a way that is sympathetic and tender. It doesn’t hurt that one of these characters, Albert, is played by the late James Gandolfini, whose slobby charm is made even more winsome by fact that this was one of his final film performances. Albert is about as sweet and low-key as Tony Soprano was fierce and explosive, and it’s easy to see how the earthy masseuse Eva (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) finds him endearing.

Catherine Keener as Marianne and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva in Enough Said — Catherine Keener as Marianne and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva in *Enough Said*

As the story goes, Albert and Eva are introduced at a party, and later he asks her out to dinner. Unbeknownst to them both, the party that brought them together also put Eva in conversation with Albert’s ex-wife, Marianne, played by Catherine Keener. Marianne is a poet, which Eva finds intriguing. And as it happens, Marianne is also in need of a good masseuse. You know what happens next. Would that Albert and Marianne’s separation was an amicable one, perhaps there would be nothing to discuss about her ex as she lay prone on the massage table as Eva works her magic. Not so, of course. Once Eva realizes that the man she finds herself growing more and more attracted to is the very man Marianne can’t cease to skewer during each massage, trouble starts brewing.

What follows is Eva eagerly drinking in Marianne’s ire about Albert, as she reads Eva a list of his faults. Unsurprisingly, many of these shortcomings involve his eating, hygiene, dress, and home décor tendencies. (As Marianne tells her, “My ex-husband and I had zero in common, and I was completely repulsed by him sexually.”) Eva can’t seem to trust her own feelings and judgment and gets deeper into a one-sided friendship with Marianne, whose narcissism is almost too obvious for Eva to notice.

All that said, the plot really turns on Eva’s relationship with her daughter Ellen (Tracey Fairaway), and her impending departure to college on the opposite coast. Eva is having a difficult time losing her daughter to this inevitable next step (and indeed, so is Albert, whose daughter Tess, played by Eve Hawson, is also on her way out of the nest). Because we follow Eva’s story the closest, we, too, are put through the emotional ringer of seeing Eva express her desire to pull Ellen tighter by proxy of Ellen’s friend Chloe (Tavi Gevinson), who feels closer to Eva than she does her own mother. Ellen resents her mother’s misplaced neediness, and their conflict is handled with nuance and grace. And it’s not as if Eva’s married friends Will and Sarah (played by Ben Falcone and Toni Colette) have it figured out; Sarah, for instance, is obsessed with rearranging the furniture, which Will finds perplexing. Their exchanges are especially amusing, as is much of the film overall.

Still from Enough Said — Still from *Enough Said*

What I found most compelling about this film is Eva’s obsession with Albert’s physicality, but not for the reasons you might expect. Yes, Albert is clearly overweight and could stand to show up to a second date with a button-down instead of a T-shirt, but it’s the way that Eva tallies up his faults that shows her to be the one who could stand to do some work on herself. Audiences are quite used to seeing relationships in romantic comedies wherein men and women’s attractiveness is asymmetrical (see: almost every Judd Apatow film). If you’re like me, you find this troubling and tired and yet another example of Hollywood’s gendered double standard. But Enough Said calls into question Eva’s superficiality and preoccupation with Albert’s physical flaws (from his caloric intake to his loud, labored nose breathing) rather than condone her attitude as a reasonable response. Holofcener offers a subtle yet powerful critique of women’s tendencies to promote amongst themselves an ethos of moral superiority as expressed in physical health and well-being. After all, the central irony of Eva is that while her livelihood is to provide a healthful touch, she will not allow herself to be the recipient of the same tenderness. Practicing massage requires acceptance and kindness toward the body—something that does not come easy to her when it comes to letting herself connect with Albert.

Without spoiling the ending, let’s just say Enough Said leaves us with a sweetly unresolved last scene. It’s rare that a romantic-comedy hints that in fact, yes, it is possible for people to come together without the expectation that one or both people need to change in order to win the other’s affection. Holofcener’s film makes a refreshing case for suspending judgment for the sake of trusting one’s gut feeling—and the importance of following your own way.

Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.

Wedding Week: You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You: ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ and the Promise of Bridal Transformation

This is a guest post by Jessica Freeman-Slade.

As much as they contain all the elements of great cinema—gorgeous photography, lighting, costumes—weddings are hard to capture on film because their machinations and motivations are so terribly complicated. Even a film like Father of the Bride can’t distance itself from the fact that weddings are logistical nightmares, fraught with overblown expenses and political negotiations. And what wedding film would be complete without a slightly bonkers bride—a woman whose obsession with bridedom belies a slightly unstable mind? Nowhere is this more the case than in Muriel’s Wedding, the 1994 Australian film by P.J. Hogan that made Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths into major stars and prompted women everywhere to ask the question, “When I get married, who will I become?”

Muriel depressed at home

Muriel Heslop (Collette, in her first major role) has very little going for her as a wedding movie heroine. According to her friends from her banal suburban hometown of Porpoise Spit, Australia, she is beyond help—as one of them tells her, “You never wear the right clothes. You’re fat. You listen to 70s’ music. You bring us down, Muriel. You embarrass us.” Even if their criticisms are over the top, it’s plain that Muriel is uncomfortable in her own skin—the only moment where she looks relaxed is when she tunes out to Abba music in her bedroom, the walls of which are plastered with pages torn from bridal magazines. “I know I’m not normal,” she says to her bitchy friends, “but I’m trying to change.” “You’ll still be you,” they counter.

Muriel at resort

Their criticisms sting as badly as those from her father (Bill Hunter) a local celebrity clinging to his former political glory and doling out heavy psychological abuse to everyone in his family, including his meek and scatterbrained wife Betty (Jeanine Drynan, in a heartbreaking and subtle performance). Muriel yearns to escape from Porpoise Spit, and when her father’s mistress snags her a job as a cosmetics saleswoman, she cashes in her start-up money for a resort vacation to spite her old friends. There she reconnects with a former high school classmate Rhonda (Griffiths), who is nothing like Muriel’s former crowd.

Rachel Griffiths as Rhonda

Watching Rhonda and Muriel’s first conversation, you can see Muriel peeking out of her shell, as a brand new friend expresses real interest and enthusiasm in her life. Rhonda tells it like it is—she delivers the swift kick to the groin that the terrible Porpoise Spit girls deserve, and we immediately see what a friend like her does to liberate Muriel’s sense of self and fun. Is there anything more satisfying than watching Muriel and Rhonda triumph with their Abba number while the girls tear each other apart?

Waterloo number

This is what triumph looks like—not a march down the aisle (we’ll get there later), but a victory dance with someone who matches you, white lame costume and all. The most romantic moment in the movie isn’t between Muriel and her new husband, it’s between Rhonda and Muriel as they celebrate their last night at the resort. Rhonda genuinely admires Muriel—partly for Muriel’s lie about a fiancé, but mostly because she is starting to stand up for herself. “In high school, you were so quiet you could hardly talk,” Rhonda tells her. “You were too shy to look at people . . . You’re not nothing, Muriel. You’ve made it.”

Rhonda and Muriel

It takes making a true friend like Rhonda to get her to leave her parents’ house and strike out for Sydney, where she gets a job as a video store clerk (right across the street from Rhonda’s job), finds a bit more of her own style, and begins dating. “This is my new life, I’m a new person—I’m changing my name, to Mariel.” Muriel/Mariel finds herself leaping fully into life—and into romance, without hesitating or fearing embarrassment. Even her first sexual encounter is full of joy—especially when she realizes the guy is even more eager to please than she is.

Muriel’s first time

For a brief period, Muriel doesn’t count on Abba or wedding photos to feel good about herself. “Since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney, I haven’t listened to one Abba song,” she tells Rhonda. “That’s because now my life’s as good as an Abba song. It’s as good as ‘Dancing Queen’.” This confidence wanes, however, when Rhonda gets a scary diagnosis that leaves her in a wheelchair. Despondent, Muriel stops into a nearby bridal salon in hopes of comfort, in one of the most fetishistic wedding dress scenes of all time.

Muriel in wedding dress

Muriel’s yearning is palpable—she tears up as she’s swathed in silk, completely obsessed with the vision of herself as a beautiful bride. The illusion of desirability is enough to make her happy—for Muriel seeks transformation above all, the ability to feel beautiful and loved and to become Mariel, a bride, anyone except her old self.

Bridal shop breakdown

When that transformative wedding presents itself, Muriel seizes the opportunity—even if it means marrying a foreign Olympic-level swimmer, David van Arkle (Daniel Lapaine), to help him gain citizenship. The marriage is predicated on a lie, and yet Muriel slips into the arrangement willingly, trading perfect love for a perfect wedding. Because she has such an extreme investment in this new version of herself, she leaves Rhonda behind, and as she walks down the aisle at her wedding (to an Abba tune, of course), she grins so broadly that she looks maniacal.

Muriel’s wedding march

The wedding, in Muriel’s eyes, is a triumph—but when Rhonda, wheelchair-bound and stuck back in Porpoise Spit confronts her, the victory is suddenly very hollow. “I showed them,” Muriel beams. “Showed them what?” Rhonda asks. Muriel replies, “I’m as good as they are.” Rhonda is appalled. “Mariel van Arkle stinks. And she’s not half the person Muriel Heslop was.”

Muriel at altar

What is marriage supposed to do for a woman who doesn’t know her worth? Does a wedding dress make an ugly person beautiful? Does speaking vows equal promising love? Muriel epitomizes the kind of person who, in lieu of other prospects in her life, waits for the transformative power of her wedding day to find her true self. But this self wasn’t the one who blossomed with Rhonda and a new city—Muriel wanted to have the same success as that of her old friends, to be called successful because she had the marriage and the new name and the status of a beautiful wedding. But on her first night as a married woman, she sleeps alone, her husband a stranger, her friends all absent.

Betty (Muriel’s mom)

Muriel’s Wedding is basically a cautionary tale about valuing status and reputation over real connection. Muriel knows that she’s happy with Rhonda in Sydney, but by fulfilling her fantasies of beauty, wealth, and romantic achievement, she forgets her real strength: her honesty, decency, and kindness. These strengths were all there in her mother, Betty, whose cruel fate turns the movie from a girly romp into something much more meditative. She is talked over, pushed around, and utterly ignored, invisible even in her own home. Betty barely gets a moment of self-determination before she commits suicide, and her presence is felt most deeply in the frightening image of the Heslop backyard: a swath of literally scorched earth, where nothing can grow if nothing is tended and cared for.

Muriel in bed

Early in the film, Muriel tells her mom, “I’m gonna get married, and I’m gonna be a success.” And yet, weeping to her unfamiliar husband, Muriel realizes that her success is as thin and insubstantial as bridal organza. Speaking of her father, Muriel wails, “I thought I was so different—a new person. But I’m not. I’m just the same as him.” It takes retreating back to her true self, to calling herself Muriel once more, to actually feel loved, beautiful, and ready to take on the world. And Hogan delivers a finale that satisfies all those cravings.

Finale

So ultimately putting Muriel’s Wedding in the wedding movie category is a bit like calling Thelma and Louise a crime thriller. Because the film skewers the narrow way a woman can view her wedding as a Cinderella-like escape, it may be one of the sharpest and smartest satires of our wedding-obsessed culture ever captured on film—and one of the best female empowerment movies ever made. While Muriel may have been a beautiful bride, she makes an even better heroine for single, married, and engaged women everywhere when she ditches the veil, the bouquet, and the bridesmaids, and finally learns to rely on herself.

Muriel at end

Jessica Freeman-Slade is a cookbook editor at Random House, and has written reviews for The Rumpus, The Millions, The TK Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Specter Magazine, among others. She lives in Morningside Heights, NY.

Travel Films Week: Protecting Olive in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’

Movie poster for Little Miss Sunshine

This is a guest review by Melissa Richard.

Look around… this place is fucked! I don’t want these people judging Olive—fuck them! You’re the mom—you’re supposed to protect her! Everyone is gonna laugh at her, Mom… please don’t let her do this. Look, she’s not a beauty queen. She’s just not.

So says Dwayne to his mother Sheryl moments before his sister Olive hits the stage for the talent portion of the pageant that gives Little Miss Sunshine its title. Olive and Little Miss Sunshine are who and what pile the extended Hoover family into a yellow VW van and carry them across 800 miles from New Mexico to California. In the process, the Hoovers lose dreams and careers, gear clutches and horn capabilities, not to mention the heroin-snorting Grandpa. Dwayne’s outburst comes at the near-end of a trip filled with heartache and disappointment (often simultaneously gut-wrenching and hilarious), and not only because he recognizes the damage participating in the contest might cause to his younger sister. He also expresses the collective fear of the male Hoovers who have generally, through their own failures, come to see (and protect) Olive as a symbol of personal redemption.

Sheryl checking in with Olive before her talent act, with Richard and Dwayne looking on

Little Miss Sunshine is like many classic road trip films in that the trip itself is a vehicle (pun intended) for the characters to learn something about one another, about themselves, and/or to come to a kind of acceptance of one another, and of themselves, by the film’s end. And Little Miss Sunshine’s characters certainly have a lot to learn because, like most of us, they are deeply and, in some cases tragically, flawed.

Olive’s dad Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) is a failing motivational speaker (a complete contradiction); brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) is in teenage-boy training to become a jet pilot (which later goes down the tubes when it’s discovered that he’s colorblind); Uncle Frank (Steve Carell), the “number one highly-regarded Proust scholar” in America, is recovering from an attempted suicide after his love interest, a graduate student, dumps him for the “number two highly-regarded Proust scholar” in America; Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin) is a heroin addict who’s been kicked out of his retirement community and has an abiding love of women, porn, and Rick James (and has, possibly, a knack for choreography); and then there’s mom Sheryl (Toni Collette), whose only major flaw seems to be furtively smoking cigarettes (and possibly marrying a failed motivational speaker). Olive (Abigail Breslin) and the pageant represent the movement toward something better, something successful (by literally moving toward the land of sunshine, California), even when it’s clear to everyone that Olive is just not a beauty queen, as Dwayne says. It’s not that she is a real contender that drives the Hoovers toward redemption. It’s the symbolic value of her possible success in the type of contest that society sanctions as a visible indicator of success (however troubling or, well, foolish a beauty contest is as an indicator of success for young girls and women). In other versions of these contests—careers, dreams of careers—Richard, Frank, and Dwayne, in particular, have failed.

Olive as a symbol of redemption (and the need to protect her as such) is established early in the film, when the frazzled Sheryl arrives home with Frank, and the family sits down to a working-mom meal of a bucket of fried chicken, salad, and Sprite Zero. Everyone else seems suited (or apathetic) enough to ignore the bandages on Frank’s wrists, but not Olive. She looks at Frank, gasps, and exclaims, “What happened to your arms?” Richard changes the subject to Olive’s pageant dance routine, but Frank interrupts, saying he’s had an accident and shifts the conversation to Dwayne’s vow of silence. Olive, however, insists. Frank says it’s “okay” to talk about it, which leads Sheryl to indicate that she’s “okay” with talking about it (she’s “pro-honesty”) if Frank is. After Frank permits Sheryl to tell Olive that he attempted suicide, which she does, Richard flips, suggests that it’s not an appropriate conversation to have at dinner, and “shushes” Olive. She’s nonplussed, however, and poignantly asks why Frank would want to kill himself.

Richard explaining to Olive why Uncle Frank may be a loser, but she’s going to be a winner, in the dinner scene

Professional pusher of motivational success that he is, Richard is having none of it. After listening to Frank’s building tale of unrequited love and academic failure, he spins the story into his own type of motivational-speak, interpreting Frank’s narrative as a series of “foolish choices” and “giving up on himself” for Olive. On the one hand, the interpretation is a way—albeit a clumsy, ineffective, and completely ridiculous one—to package the “why” of an attempted suicide to a seven-year-old. On the other hand, it’s a clear reflection of the underlying fear of failure that Richard himself is facing in the attempted sell of his “Refuse to Lose / 9 Steps” program (which does, indeed, fail). Richard may not realize this consciously, but as he spins Olive’s desire to compete into a similar “winner or loser” narrative to that of Frank’s, the family, as well as the audience, does—especially since the Hoovers can hardly afford to take the trip. Green-lighting the road trip is Richard’s way of explicitly protecting Olive’s dream and implicitly protecting his own.

The reasons for the Hoovers to protect Olive are not always as selfish as those that Richard might have for protecting her (and, on occasion, they have to protect Olive from her father’s philosophy). In fact, the literal protection of Olive from the social pressures that break us down as adults is often incredibly touching, as it is in the diner scene wherein Olive orders her waffles “a la mode-ee.” Although Sheryl questions Olive’s choice of ice cream on the grounds of it being so early in the morning, Richard objects because he’s still got his eye on her success (as a beauty queen specifically, but replace the pageant with anything else and he’d likely have a similar objection). He breaks into a patronizing lesson on how ice cream comes from cream, which comes from cows, and notes that “cream has a lot of fat in it.” Sheryl, bless her, knows where he’s going with this and mutters under her breath “Richh-eerd.” As usual, Richard turns Sheryl’s earlier “pro-honesty” defense of telling Olive about Frank’s suicide attempt against her (“she’s gonna find out anyway”). When Olive asks what she might find out, Richard replies, “Well, when you eat ice cream, the fat in the ice cream becomes fat in the body.”

The Hoovers at their first pit stop on the road, looking totally enthused as Richard explains to Olive how cream makes you fat

To her credit—and displaying the role she plays in the protection of her daughter—Sheryl looks at Olive and says, “I just want you to understand that it’s okay to be skinny and it’s okay to be fat, if that’s what you wanna be. Whatever you want, it’s okay.” While Olive is processing this, Richard asks Olive to consider whether beauty queens are “skinny or fat,” to which she quietly replies “They’re skinny, I guess.” And Sheryl shoots Richard a death-ray stare as the waitress comes over and serves Olive her “a la mode-ee” side dish.

“Does anyone want my ice cream?” Olive sadly asks.

Grandpa to the rescue. “Yeah, I’d like a little…” he says, and then he invites everyone else to have some, as well, until Olive protests “Wait! Stop! Don’t eat it all…” and digs in. (And Sheryl cuts Richard’s attempted interruption of this as Dwayne shoots a spitball through a straw directly into Richard’s face.) Taking their cue from Sheryl, Grandpa, Dwayne, and Frank are not only protecting Olive’s desire to eat ice cream; they are ultimately protecting her right to make her own choices and to disregard what society (a patriarchal society represented by Richard, maybe?) tells her to choose.

This particular scene foreshadows the protection the Hoover men give Olive during her dance performance during the talent portion of Little Miss Sunshine. Having made it to California and only losing one person (poor Grandpa), the Hoovers have everything invested in Olive, including the emotional toll their own failures have taken on them. Olive’s routine to Rick James’ “Super Freak,” choreographed by the recently departed Grandpa, is the film’s true highlight because it does so much in a few minutes: it makes explicit the sexualized undertones of the child glitz pageant world (Olive might be shaking her bootie and doing the ever-lovable “growl crawl,” but the little dolls in their make-up and teased hair represent something similar on a different frequency); it provides the context through which the Hoovers are able to pull together and to accept themselves as they are; but it also provides the moment when Richard, as well as Frank and Dwayne, are really able to protect Olive for who she is and what she’s chosen. With the head pageant judge in a tizzy over the routine, Richard jumps on stage to protect Olive from being pulled off, but instead of quietly suggesting to his daughter that it’s time to go, he begins dancing with her (and is joined by the rest of the Hoovers in quick succession).

Frank, Richard, and Dwayne rockin’ out on stage with Olive

The Hoover boys may not like what the pageant represents, which they become clearly aware of once they arrive, and it’s not about protecting Olive as a symbol anymore. It’s about representing her choice to be in the pageant, whether she’s truly a contender or not.

Which brings me back to the quotation from Dwayne I opened with.

Dwayne and Richard are now mentally awake enough to be concerned about Olive competing in the show; they’ve now seen the polished contestants strut and pose for the judges, and they know she’s not made of that stuff. As Dwayne points out, she’s just not. At first flustered by the sudden concern toward Olive, Sheryl finally explains to them:

Olive is who she is. She has worked so hard, she’s poured everything into this. We can’t just take it away from her—we can’t! I know you wanna protect her… but we gotta let Olive be Olive.

Like in the diner scene when she tells Olive she can be skinny or fat or whatever she wants to be, Sheryl has been protecting Olive all along—not because she herself is missing something, not because she’s failed personally, but because she recognizes the importance of a little girl being able to be, well, who she is. Sheryl isn’t your typical pageant mom… she’s not a “pageant mom” at all. She’s far removed from those types of moms you see on shows like TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras, women who put out big bucks for high-teased hair pieces, spray tans, and “flippers” that transform mere babies into miniature adult likenesses, who act out routines for their daughters to follow from the audience, who train, coach, and, sometimes quite literally, push these girls toward the stage. In fact, Sheryl is clearly removed from the process in a positive sense: from the moment she hears the phone message from her sister, Cindy, indicating that Olive is eligible to compete in Little Miss Sunshine (and rolls her eyes at the revelation that the first-place winner set to compete was disqualified because of “diet pills or something”), Sheryl is proud and supportive of Olive no matter what. She’s not pushy, but she’s not disconnected, either. She is being what Dwayne reminds her she is—“the mom”—by allowing Olive the freedom of her own choices.

Letting “Olive be Olive”—and learning to protect the choice Olive can make to be herself—is ultimately what allows the Hoovers to accept themselves and one another. We don’t know what life will be like for the Hoovers once they return to New Mexico, but one thing is for certain by the film’s end: they’ve broken through a lot more than the barrier gate in the parking lot of the Redondo Beach Inn.

Melissa Richard is a part-time English instructor at High Point University in the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina. She writes about work and women in nineteenth-century Britain (as well as less esoteric topics), likes to take photographs of things and stuff, and thinks that dancing is really fun.

Guest Post: Tara is Better Not United

This guest post also appears at Professor, What If… and the Ms. Magazine blog.

As I began watching the second-season premiere of the Showtime series The United States of Tara, I eagerly ask what I always do before an episode starts: “Which ‘alter’ will it be this time?”

Alas, to my dismay, the show’s bubbly focus on a recovered Tara Gregson (Toni Collette) meant that the “alters”–alternate personalities of this 21st century Sybil–were gone, thrown out like the unwanted clothing ceremoniously dumped into a charity bin in the show opener. Instead, we have happy, functioning Tara, and an upbeat musical soundtrack trying to manipulate us to believe that, indeed, all is well in the Tara-verse.

But we soon learn that Tara as one person, no longer suffering from dissociative identity disorder, is not nearly as fun or interesting as she is as five different people. Instead, the “true Tara” now displays some of the most annoying traits of all five of her alters.

She incorporates her Alice-esque alter by donning a 50s-style apron and throwing herself into a dinner party with the neighborhood’s token gay couple. She speaks her mind Buck-style (Buck was a beer-swigging male alter) when a neighbor commits suicide, bragging “The lady with all the personalities is not the most fucked up person on the block.” After the dinner party, her T-proclivities (that was the teenaged alter) come out, and she performs a manic Bollywood number, ending with provocative thrusting in her hubby’s face. Her sister Charmaine assures her new beau that Tara has not actually “transitioned” into the other personality, indicating that perhaps it would be better if she did, while Tara’s husband Max is visibly worried that the new “sane” Tara might be more insane than before.

Given the show’s emphasis on the self as performative, and on the impossibility of performing to societal standards (especially if one is female), this suggestion that Tara’s recovery may not be a step forward is intriguing. Though the show reveals all the difficulties Tara’s disorder causes for her and her family, it also seems to be indicating that the real problem is a society that expects us to perform in very particular, stable and normative ways. These regulatory ideals are so oppressive that we either bind ourselves into limited roles (i.e., Alice-the-50s-housewife) or run the risk of being seen as “crazy”–as “normal” Tara is when she laughs too loud, makes a suicide joke or has too much fun at a dinner party.

The show’s underlying critique of such normative ideals, and the relatively freeing notion of embracing the self as performance, is evident in other characters as well. Marshall, Tara’s closeted gay son, tries hard to be serious, smart and talented, but finds that flaunting his identity by sitting at the “gay-ble”–the school lunch table where gays and their allies sit–is a welcome relief, and results in him joining a campaign at his school aimed to raise queer visibility.

Charmaine, Tara’s sister, struggles with regulatory norms in choosing between a relationship with traditional hunk Neil vs. unattractive and vertically challenged Nick, who is personality-privileged and emotionally supportive. Charmaine tried to follow normative requirements in the past by augmenting her breasts to please her then-husband, a choice that resulted in lopsided and off-center nipples. Now that she has had these “corrected,” she seems to believe she can do better than short, balding Nick.

The character of Tara’s teenaged daughter Kate has thus far been largely challenged around the regulation of her sexuality, as indicated with Tara’s concern that she was not able to “micromanage her daughter’s vagina.” Kate’s struggles with a creepy boss and an abusive boyfriend expose a society populated by males wishing for similar micro-managing power.

Max appears to be the character least affected by social norms. He doesn’t seem to care that his wife is far from typical, worrying only about her health and happiness rather than what others think. He does not condemn or regulate his son’s sexuality nor attempt to micromanage his daughter. If any character seems too good to be true, it’s him. This is perhaps why Max is a bit empty as a character: a sort of dad/husband placeholder who comes off as boring and conventional in a cast of otherwise entertaining family members.

While Robert Abele laments at L.A. Weekly that “United States of Tara plays like surface feminism with an added gloss of snark and a bewilderingly blah sentimentality,” I would counter that the snark is integral to the feminist critique the show enacts. The snark reveals that our “normal” selves are “blah,” and thus we should embrace those aspects of our identity that subvert regulatory norms lest we end up living in a world full of bores.

Diablo Cody, the show’s creator, readily admits that she asks of everything she writes, “How am I going to sneak my subversive feminist message into this?” With Tara, she sneaks in this message beautifully, conveying that societal ideals–be they a stable self, heterosexuality or conventional attractiveness–do not an exciting world (or episode) make.

Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in the areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if…? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.