MovieChat Forums > Alice's Restaurant (1969) Discussion > Movie about Co-dependence

Movie about Co-dependence

posted 11 years ago by nuazwildcats
4 replies | jump to latest

I first saw this movie as a 10 year-old child back in 1970. Besides being very interested in the Martha Plimpton scene, I was fascinated by the anti-establishment message conveyed by the movie. I recently watched this movie again.

I thought I would enjoy reminiscing about the 1960’s, which I was just a little too young to experience. However, I was very uncomfortable watching the movie unfold this time. I saw a huge problem of poor boundaries in most, if not all of the relationships. I summarize the movie in this this way:

Co-dependent Alice Brock burns out from running her restaurant, which supports a large number of emotionally immature adults and addicts. Chief among her co-dependents are her husband, Ray (now ex-husband), and folk singer Arlo Guthrie, who spends most of his time avoiding adulthood at every turn in his charming way.

The closing image of Alice standing alone outside the church/house/commune was meant to be dark and foreboding. I took this as meaning that her life was not going to get less lonely or troubled in this kind of relationship or situation.

Comments (constructive only please).

[–] wjosephsimmons 11 years ago

I think it's interesting that you summarize the entire movie as being about codependence rather than other, more apparent themes such as social nonconformism, anti-war draft resistance or simply the countercultural ethos that was so prevalent in late sixties' United States of America and across the world. It is, after all, another example of a hippie exploitation film produced in 1969 and written, not by Arlo Guthrie, but by a Tony Award-winning Broadway director (Arthur Penn) as a way to capitalize on the popular song Guthrie had released in October of 1967.

Certainly, the domestic violence portrayed in the relationship of Alice and Ray was reflective of codependent behavior, but personally I didn't get the impression at all that the closing scene of Alice at the door of the church suggested that "her life was not going to get less lonely or troubled". Dark and foreboding, perhaps, but I think that it was rather simply more reflective of the general anxiety and apprehension that the people of this world - and especially that the people of these United States - were experiencing at this time in history. The Thanksgiving Day portrayed in the film was based on the real-life events of November, 1965. The first deployment of U.S. combat units to Vietnam (3,500 Marines) occurred eight months before in March of that same year, and their number had increased to nearly 200,000 troops by that December. By the end of 1965, a total of 230,991 U.S. men had been drafted into military service that same year, more than twice the number drafted the previous year.

Can you imagine being a young adult during this time in United States' history? Can you? You were born in 1960 (or thereabouts); I in 1963. I was a 9 year-old child when the last man to be inducted through the Selective Service System entered the Army on June 30, 1973. We are so lucky not to have had to face those kinds of fears in our lives. While I will never agree that the U.S. involvement in that war was the right thing to do (if that can be said of war at all), I will forever respect our Vietnam veterans for their sacrifice: the more than 150,000 who were wounded, the more than 21,000 who were left permanently disabled, and the more than 58,000 who never came back.

[–] gngral23 11 years ago

nuazwildcats, it's Shelly Plimpton, not Martha, who just happens to be Shelly's daughter.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] prigat-12775 8 years ago

I Agree!
I think this mentality of an "Lok at me Im an Artist" thing, goes ON today too !
There are ppl who simply, would be cond3mned for many things but get off of being an "Artist" Sad, Man
Oh May I say I love Art myself ?
But I hate Douchebags of any kind.