MovieChat Forums > A Home of Our Own (1993) Discussion > Frances needed a visit from FrancesThe T...

Frances needed a visit from FrancesThe Talking Mule!

posted 12 years ago by DialingForDollarhyde
2 replies | jump to latest

Oh man, what a bleak, ugly-looking movie. That stubborn mule of a mother could have used a good kick in the head from another mule. Yeah yeah yeah, I know she was just trying to be self-sufficient and all that, but to let her kids live in squalor when she could have just accepted a little bit of temporary charity is wrong. The kids could have learned an important lesson about the bonds of community and how people can rally to help others in need, even before they burned their shack down.

Gnarly depiction of poverty too, all those kids in that tub...eeewwww... but accurate.

But come on, construction supplies for Christmas?

"The psychologists call him a psychopath. They don't know what else to call him."

[–] MadSimian 12 years ago

I think that she(and thus her children)were born and raised in LA so they weren't familiar or used to any idea of 'community'. Also, she looks to be at least 30 in the film(probably closer to 40 though) so she likely lived through the Great Depression to some degree(iirc that this movie is set in the 60s). People who've lived through that tend to be very frugal and self-sufficient although, as you can see in the film, sometimes those qualities can be detrimental to them too.

The thing is though, she did 'learn her lesson' by the end of the movie and, going by the ending narration, the family's life was much improved after that.

Sig-A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence a lot of IMDb board users.-me paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw

[–] Lauraslipstick 11 years ago

Well said! She was stubborn and let her pride get in the way but that's how a lot of people were back then, but she changed after she finally put her pride aside and accepted help. She also learned there aren't always strings attached to the help people offer too.