So the other week I went to see this play because my friend Megan was sick and couldn't use her ticket. I went with Diana and Rachel, and they both hated it. But I didn't, and I've been thinking about why that is ever since. The play followed a dysfunctional family as they gather during the father's brief disappearance and then suicide. The entire play is about the family fighting. The entire thing.
I think the first thing I liked about the play was the quality of the acting. The actors were so passionate and it was electrifying to watch. I don't think I would have felt more uncomfortable if I had actually been in the room watching a real family fight than I did sitting in the audience.I often like dark movies and books. I find it inspirational to see people be happy in their imperfect lives, much more so than story lines where everything wraps up perfectly. Fairy tales can be a fun escape from reality, but I don't believe in happily ever after endings real life. This play, however, was not one of those stories. Every character ended up alone and miserable, and the writer of the play did not hand us a take away lesson.
I don't know if there's ever been such an unhappy family, although I know there are some very dysfunctional families in the world. Between the yelling, hurt feelings, abandonment, depression, marital problems, addictions, affairs, incest, child molestation, lying and cheating, there was some element of tragedy everyone could relate to. Unless of course you have a perfect family and don't know anyone who struggles in life, and then I am very happy for you that that is your situation. I kept wondering what it is that makes some families rise above these problems (or even avoid them in the first place) and why other families fall apart. I know the gospel of Jesus Christ helps my family, and I would imagine the same principles of love, mercy, and forgiveness are in place in all happy families.
There was one scene in particular where a young girl was sitting on the stairs listening to her separated parents fight. I started to cry real tears as I was overwhelmed with how hard and heart breaking life can be. It was kind of cathartic to watch the play. And kind of exhausting. I remember convincing my family to see a pretty dark movie over the holidays one year. My mom hates dark movies, and I think she is still a little upset about that one Christmas. :) So I know plenty of people hate dark stories with unhappy endings. But I simply don't. I find human nature fascinating, even in desperate situations. And at the very least, the take-away is, be nice or you will die alone.
What do you think of unhappy movies/books/plays? Do you love them or hate them? Or maybe some of each? Do you have rules for what makes it go one way or the other?
6 comments:
i love unhappy movies, they are often so much more real.
my brother and i having a terrible habit of watching families in unhappy movies or shows, and then agreeing that no matter how messed up they are, our family is still worse.
I can enjoy an unhappy movie once in a while. 500 Day of Summer was one such unhappy movie I enjoyed. It had a somewhat happy ending, but it was nicely rooted in reality for almost its entirety. Hotel Rwanda was also a pretty unhappy movie. Yeah, you have a hero saving others, but the movie is about genocide, so it's certainly not a pick-me-up.
Usually unhappy movies or books are total downers. If I want to be in a sour mood, I know a few people (co-workers) I can have conversations with to put me there, for less than the cost of a movie or book.
I don't necessarily need a happy ending, but of course it depends on the movie. I don't enjoy a movie that leaves me just discouraged and depressed, with nothing deeper. But I do like movies where I feel like I connect, so it leaves me feeling understood and validated. Movies that make me think. Movies that give me emotional catharsis. All good things in my book.
(Sorry, this is a really long response...)
First off: I love reading about your interpretation of the play and talking to you about it.
Secondly: My grandmother always told “Hate is a very strong word; use it sparingly” so I wouldn’t say that I hated August: Osage County :) What I will say is that I there wasn’t much about it that I liked. Except the acting which was absolutely incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable or awkward in any situation, real or imagined!
I think the precise thing I didn’t like about the play is that, as you say, the playwright didn’t leave us with a take away lesson other than “be nice or you will die,” which while that’s always a good reminder seems like a pretty weak lesson for the purchase price of a ticket :)
I think there are generally 3 sorts of stories (plays, movies, books, etc)
A. Those that are purely
entertaining
B. Those that are supposed to
teach you something (and if
you’re lucky also entertain
you).
C. Those that are intended to be
entertaining but just aren’t
(ie: almost anything with
Nicolas Cage)
As long as a story falls into category A or B I’m usually OK with it. If something’s not entertaining I expect it to at least teach me something or remind me of some lesson that I should have already learned at this point in my life. August: Osage county was neither.
If you think about movies like Hotel Rwanda, the Power of One (there’s a flashback to high school), the Kite Runner or the Little Princess (my all-time favorite book by the way) they all have a protagonist who finds a way to overcome the hellish hand they’ve been dealt in life or does something to help others in awful situations. They cling to that hope that life can be better and they actually are proactive and do something about it—even if their actions are something small and seemingly insignificant.
What the characters in A:OC were lacking was a HOPE that their lives could be different than they currently were. Instead, they simply resigned themselves to the fact that their fiancés were child molesters, their daughters were pre-teen druggies, their brothers and sisters also happened to be lovers, and that their husbands couldn't be expected to be faithful. And they took 3.5 hours to keep hitting us over the head with how dysfunctional of a family they were.
Too often in life we think that the “Happily Ever After” endings mean that the ending is perfect and I’d agree with you that the perfect endings don’t exist. I do think though, that we can all still have our “Happily Ever After” (in life, or work, or relationships, or whatever it may be) when we realize that we can indeed be happy—-even VERY happy-—in imperfect situations.
(and again, sorry for the excessively long comment)
I'm with you, Court--I like depressing stories, except I rarely find them depressing.
I tend to like them, with a few notable exceptions. Such as Pursuit of Happyness, that was too depressing to me for some reason. But in general, I enjoy the thoughts and analysis they stimulate in my ever-analyzing mind.
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