MY LIFE
Director: Bruce Joel Rubin. Cast: Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman. 1993. 117 minutes.
A touching human story featuring two famous Hollywood stars, Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman.
The movie begins with Bob as a little boy in his immigrant home in Detroit. He prays to God to send a circus to his house, and invites his classmates to come and see it. They come, and find there is no circus. Bob is angry with God and withdraws to a tiny room.
In the rest of the film, we see Bob as a young and successful businessman in California, who has no interest in connecting with his parents and brother. His wife is pregnant with their first child, a boy. They receive the crushing news that Bob is diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer, and will die soon. So, he makes a video for his son, teaching him things that a father would like to teach his child.
An oriental healer he goes to tells him there is much anger in his heart, and asks him to let go. Bob finds it difficult. His visit to his parents does not go well. He is ashamed of their poorer financial status and immigrant ways. They resent his ways, including his changing his surname.
The cancer advances. His parents come to visit him, and show him much love. As his father shaves him one day, Bob is able to tell him that he loves him. As he gets weaker and weaker, the family prepares a surprise for him—a real circus in his backyard—which he missed as a little kid.
His child is born. Bob, now extremely weak and nearing death, talks to his son, pouring his heart out. He lets go of his anger. He dies surrounded by loving family members. In the movie’s last scene, his wife plays his video to their baby.
This well-acted movie touches several central human themes: Loving family ties, even when two generations differ in many ways; the need to let go of anger and resentment; an external show of success hiding much loneliness; the power of love and forgiveness to overcome years of separation.
THE BUCKET LIST
Director: Rob Reiner. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman. 2007. 97 minutes.
Carter Chambers, a mechanic, and Edward Cole, a multi-millionaire, meet in the hospital that Cole owns. They share the same rooms. Both are diagnosed with cancer. Cole, a four-time divorcee now estranged from his only daughter, does not care about people; Carter is a loving family man. His wife visits him often.
Cole makes spiteful comments about Carter at the beginning, but slowly, they begin to relate. Carter had made a “Bucket List”—a list of things to do before “kicking the bucket” (slang for “dying”), but now, realizing he does not have much time left, throws the paper away.
Cole picks up the sheet, and coaxes Carter to join him on an adventure—to complete the things on the bucket list, offering to pay for their travel around the world. After all, he has money in plenty, but no family. Carter has a loving family, but very little money.
So, against the wishes of Carter’s family, the two travel to Egypt, India, Nepal, Hong Kong, Tanzania.
They share deeper aspects of their lives, and become close friends. Carter speaks of his diminishing love for his wife. Cole tells him about his estrangement from his only daughter.
Cole arranges for a prostitute to be with Carter. Carter refuses, and asks to go back home. He returns to his loving family, but collapses, since the cancer has spread to his brain. At his funeral, Cole makes a moving oration, stating that the three months with Carter were the three best months of his life.
Cole gets reconciled to his estranged daughter. When he dies, at age 81, his assistant buries his ashes to the Himalayas.
This movie contrasts two lives—one, a brilliant man who could not become a professor for lack of money, but has a loving family; the other a super-rich cynic with no family ties and committed to no one. With humour and pathos, it confronts questions such as: What is success? What is wealth? What are the things we really want to get done before we “kick the bucket?”
Fr Joe Mannath
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