Eighth Grade

Thursday morning I went to see Eighth Grade and, as a former eighth grade teacher, I laughed out loud many times and cringed in my seat at the poignant and realistic portrayal of middle school life.  This movie introduces us to Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher), an awkward teenager trying to navigate her last week of eighth grade.  She creates YouTube videos giving advice about being true to yourself, putting yourself out there, and being brave.  These videos are, ostensibly, for an audience (that doesn't really exist) but they end up inspiring her as she attends a party for one of the most popular girls in school, tries to catch the eye of her crush, and becomes friends with a group of older students.  I absolutely loved this movie because I loved the character of Kayla (as well as Elsie Fisher's portrayal of her).  She is a typical teenager with flaws but she ultimately makes so many good decisions.  She realizes that she doesn't need to be friends with the popular girls (her confrontation with them at graduation made me want to cheer out loud) and she chooses someone who accepts her for who she is.  She realizes that she doesn't need to give in to peer pressure or compromise herself in an incredibly powerful scene where she stands her ground against the sexual advances of an older boy.  She realizes that her negative experiences in middle school do not need to define her because she is a good person and things will get better.  Kayla is a fantastic role model for young girls and the only thing that gives me pause in recommending this for all teens and parents is that it is incredibly realistic with language and sexual situations.  However, this movie could be the catalyst for some great discussions and I definitely suggest checking it out.

Three Identical Strangers

The documentary Three Identical Strangers has been generating a lot of buzz lately so I decided to see it Tuesday afternoon.  It is one of the most thought-provoking documentaries I've ever seen and there was a moment near the end that made me quite emotional.  This true story begins in 1980 when Robert Shafran, at age nineteen, goes to college and is mistaken for Edward Galland.  When the two eventually meet they discover that, not only do they look identical, but they share the same birthday and were both adopted through the same adoption service.  As media coverage about the twins separated at birth intensifies, David Kellman realizes that he is also their brother.  The three brothers immediately bond with each other and become inseparable.  They realize that their lives have very similar parallels and that they have much in common.  They are happy to be together but their adoptive parents are angry and demand answers as to why they were separated without their knowledge.  The adoption agency gives an unsatisfactory answer so they begin digging and find something more sinister than they could have imagined.  They were separated as part of a psychological study but the results were never published or released and all information relating to the study has been sealed.  The narrative leads the audience to make certain conclusions about nature vs. nurture but the brothers come to their own conclusion when tragedy strikes.  I found this conclusion to be very hopeful for families with adopted children and it brought tears to my eyes.  This is an incredibly powerful documentary that I highly recommend!

Note:  This has been a great year for documentaries!  Click the links for my commentaries on Believer, RBG, and Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Blindspotting

One of the most powerful films that I saw at Sundance this year was Blindspotting.  It profoundly affected me and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it so I had to see it again now that it is in wide release.  In an Oakland that is being overrun by hipsters, Collin (Daveed Diggs) is spending the last three days of his year-long probation trying to stay out of trouble.  His hot tempered and impulsive best friend Miles (Rafael Casal), with whom he now has an uneasy relationship, is not making things easy for him by constantly getting into trouble for which Collin is usually blamed (including the incident that landed Collin in prison in the first place).  Collin is tormented after witnessing a white cop shoot and kill a black man running away.  Miles is incensed when a black man accuses him of cultural appropriation. Both characters have intense moments of poignancy.  When I watched this film the first time, my sympathies were all with Collin, especially in a scene where he is followed by a police car while walking home with Miles' gun (that scene really affected me during both screenings) and in a scene with an incredibly powerful monologue as Collin confronts the police officer involved in the shooting.  However, this time I also felt some sympathy for Miles because his whole identity is also called into question by the gentrification of his neighborhood.  I understand now that both characters suffer from "blindspotting," or having people behave towards them according to preconceived stereotypes instead of judging them for who they are.  Both Driggs and Casal, who also wrote the screenplay, give incredible performances that pulled me into their world.  I highly recommend this film for its powerful message abut white privilege, racism, and racial profiling.  It is brilliant!

Oklahoma at Sundance

One of my very favorite summer traditions is seeing a musical at the Sundance Mountain Resort.  I have been going for years and it is always so much fun.  It feels really good to be up in the mountains where it is much cooler than in the valley and I love to smell the pine trees in the outdoor amphitheater.  The musical this year is Oklahoma, presented in conjunction with the Sundance Resort and UVU Theatre Department, and I loved it! It tells the story of the romance between Curley (Jacob Brown) and Laurey (Hannah Pyper Dalley) just as the Oklahoma territory is becoming a state and it has all of the wonderful songs we all remember such as "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'," "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top," "People Will Say We're in Love," and "Oklahoma."  The cast is superb!  Brown is incredibly endearing as Curley and he has a fantastic voice as does Dalley as Laurey.  The two of them have great chemistry, especially in the scene where they get engaged at the box social.  Rachel Bigler is hilarious as Ado Annie and I loved her rendition of "I Cain't Say No" and Thayne Caldwell is a lot of fun as Will Parker with some great rope skills in "Kansas City."  I also really enjoyed Laurie Harrop-Purser's sass as Aunt Eller.  The choreography in the big production numbers is very innovative, particularly in the "Dream Sequence," "The Farmer & the Cowman," and "Oklahoma."  The simple set with wooden platforms that looked like scaffolding on either side of the stage allows for a quick pace without a lot of encumbrances.  The colorful vintage costumes are very appealing, especially the frilly dresses at the box social.  I love the nostalgia I feel when I see one of the old classic musicals and this is one production that I definitely recommend.  It runs at the Sundance Mountain Resort until Aug.11 (go here for more information).

Summer Reading: Lilac Girls

The final selection (how did the summer go by so quickly?) on my summer reading list was Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. I found this novel to be so compelling that I read almost all night because I just had to know how it ended. The story of Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women during World War II where medical experiments were conducted on young Polish political prisoners, is told from the perspectives of three very different women. Caroline Ferriday is a New York socialite and former Broadway actress involved in many charities during the war. To mend her broken heart after a doomed love affair with a married man, she turns all of her attention to charity work and, after discovering the "Rabbits of Ravensbruck," she does everything she can to help them. Kasia Kuzmerick is a young Polish girl who is arrested for activities in the Resistance and is sent to Ravensbruck with her sister, mother, and best friend. She feels incredibly responsible for the fate of her loved ones and the anger she feels, as well as the physical disabilities resulting from the horrific experiments in the camp, make it difficult for her to adjust to life after the war. Herta Oberheuser is a trained doctor in Germany but, because she is a woman, she cannot find a position as a surgeon until she is hired at Ravensbruck. Initially, she has qualms about what she is asked to do but then rationalizes that these experiments might be saving lives of German soldiers. The lives of these three women converge to tell a remarkable story about adversity, resilience, and forgiveness. I found Caroline to be a fascinating character and I loved that she used her family's wealth and social position to help those affected by the war (she is a real-life hero of the war). I found Kasia to be a bit unsympathetic, especially in the second act, but I understood her despair and pain and that made her redemption all the more affecting. Herta was a difficult character for me (another real-life person) because she is portrayed very sympathetically at first and I wondered if Kelly was trying to absolve her for her part in the experiments. However, I came to understand her importance in the narrative in the final resolution. This novel, like most about World War II, is sometimes difficult to read but it is so well-written with a compelling story about characters that come to life off of the page. I highly recommend it!

Note:  Have you read Lilac Girls or any of the books on my summer reading list?  What did you think?