This film gives me a bit of a transient schizophrenic problem. When I was a teenager I was more of a beth, trying to help and improve the family the bests way I knew how but managing to grate on the very people I wanted to help and getting my failure commented on in ways I couldn't rebuff. But I was gossiped about within the family as if I was an April, even though the things I was told were evil were 'giving a funny look' and arguing. a lot. And like April I left to find somewhere I could be myself. but then got really sick. I personally generally didn't like the mother character, probably precisely because it was never made clear whether she was valid in making her kids feel like *beep* (the interactions in my family were in no way as clean cut as in the film), or was she just a whiney, judgemental bitch who chose at some point to forget all the good things about April and many things about her other kids that she should cherish, and who chose almost lazily to never control her vindictive, manipulative side.
I didn't have cancer but I had some relatable experiences, and on the one hand I could understand the odd outburst of being angry and resentful about the relationship with April, and I can understand the generally caustic black humor. Almost dying, being told you may almost die many times in the future, having to face that it might not just being almosting dying - at some point it's going to be dead - it doesn't necessarily radically change who you are, you may already have a life attitude that lends itself to just dealing with it, but yes, sometimes you face that you didn't put yourself out there, you weren't yourself in the universe as much as you should have been, and you can start to accept that if you want to say someone's *beep* you want to exaggerate before you come back from it and take a more sensible stance, you do that because you know it's right for the day you're in. The scene when the mother runs out of the car yelling about April biting her during breastfeeding, I didn't feel that as her having an epiphany. In my own life I've done stuff like that (screaming about someone in the privacy of a relationship that is safe to explore such things) and for me it was more realising how much you've wanted to say it, and not in a sensible way but as angry and caustic as you want, especially when they won't know you've said it, and you realise at that minute you want that outburst. It'll make you feel better, it'll help you get to what you really think quicker, the day won't be wasted if you follow these things wherever they need to go.
But on the other hand, then there's that ending, which is supposed to be an epiphany, and I didn't get that at all, on either side. The mother seeing the little girl in the bathroom and the whole family, including April, being salvaged a little by this day together, now that did feel trite to me. The most satisfying resolution I ever had in my life was having a huge argument where everything came out, but for the first time ever the people involved actually had enough respect to listen. Much better than spending a day making it special, not getting everything off your chest with the aim of seeing each others point is not my idea of a celebration of life.
Sorry, ranty tonight.
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