Movies I Watch on Repeat: Dysfunctional Family Edition

Stories have always helped me survive:  books, comics, music, TV and movies.  When I became financially stable, I immediately invested in a VCR and cable, and started recording movies at a prodigious pace.  Back then I knew something was wrong with either me or my family, but I didn't know what, and I didn't know what to do about it.  But even then, I was drawn to certain kinds of stories, and I'd watch these movies over and over.  


I'll be posting about Truth Tellers and Recovery movies in upcoming posts, but for now, here are my favorite Dysfunctional Family movies.  (There may be some spoilers, but I'll try to keep them light.)

Drop Dead Fred
This looks like a light-hearted comedy at first, and it's chock full of slapstick cartoonish humor.  Phoebe Cates plays a young woman whose childhood imaginary friend shows up in the flesh and starts causing havoc in her life.  Rik Mayall is hilarious as the imaginary friend, and it's easy to get caught up in the humor of it all.  But the more we learn about her relationships with her mother, her husband, and herself, the more we understand how much she needs her friend and the gorgeous mess Fred makes of everything around her.  It's probably a stretch to characterize him as destructive as the Indian goddess Kali, but he's at least on the same family tree.  Sometimes the only way to grow something new is to burn it all down.  That's something I've needed to use more than once in my life, and I've watched this movie dozens of times to help me relearn it. 

The movie's accurate depiction of a narcissistic mother's relationship with their daughter is really accurate, creepily so.  Of course your mileage may vary and all that, but obsession with appearances?  Check.  Use of guilt as a lever?  Check.  Threaten with loss of only valued possession?  Check.  Passive aggressive blaming?  Check and mate!  So many red flags you could build a factory around them.  Showing these so clearly was massively illuminating to me.  Life is never this clear, but it always helps to have an example to draw from. 

My rating:  About 60 viewings

Ordinary People 
Ah, the gold standard for That Movie about a Narcissistic Mother, or, Isn't She Mean and a Horrible Mom.  I love this movie, I really do.  There's not too much to say that hasn't been said, but I love the accurate picture of therapy - the frustration, the annoyance, the focus on self, the desire for a quick fix that will make everything better.  Conrad's eventual acceptance of himself and his mother for who they are, not who he wishes they could be, is hopeful, and his dad's acknowledgement at the end is so powerful for those of us who never had that privilege.  

My rating:  Probably 30 viewings

Bed of Roses 
My goodness, this was a surprise for me (and please ignore the inaccurate framing - This is not a romantic comedy, end of story).  I think I picked up this dvd because it was a double-set with Pump Up the Volume, and watched it when I had nothing else to watch.  Mary Stuart Masterson plays Lisa, a successful businesswoman with exactly one friend, a no-strings boyfriend, and no life except for work.  She receives a present out of the blue and meets a wonderful guy who sweeps her off of her feet, except she doesn't understand how that could happen to her.  We learn through her reactions how damaged she is, and it doesn't help that her new guy is moving too quickly.  So many children of narcissists don't understand what it's like to be in a normal relationship; we flinch at every loud noise, we apologize every time there's a misunderstanding, we leave the room at the whisper of a conflict.  

At the same time, we don't understand niceness.  If someone's nice to us, it's a trick, they must want something from us.  If we're not being trapped or used in some way - for money, or sex, or something - we don't know how to handle it.  If there isn't a blow-up or a passive aggressive manipulation happening, we're suspicious.  Lisa's reaction to a normal family Christmas says it all; everyone's so nice and welcoming, the house is so full of people she doesn't know, they're all hugging and talking and laughing, and you can see her flinching at every noise and getting more tense with every moment that passes.  People think that when you step out of an abusive situation, you're cured.  You'll suddenly feel better, like the fever has broken, and you're ready to act like everybody else.  It's not that easy.  You have to relearn basic human interactions, or, if you were raised wrong, learn them for the very first time.  This takes a lot of hard, frustrating work, and this movie gets it right.  

My rating:  40 viewings, at least

Ulee's Gold
I caught this in our independent theater when it came out in 1997, and I went back that same week twice more.  Peter Fonda plays Ulee, a beekeeper whose son is in prison for a robbery.  When Ulee gets a phone call from his son's partners in crime, he has to jump through hoops to rescue his daughter-in-law and keep them at bay, all while taking care of his two granddaughters and tending his bees.  At the same time, he's coming face to face with his failings as a father and grandfather, and trying to change how he approaches his family to close the gaps he's created between them.  

I can't tell you how amazing it is for me to watch someone look deeply at their life, acknowledge the mistakes they've made, and attempt to change their behavior based on that knowledge.  It's something that children of narcissists rarely get to see, nigh onto a unicorn.  

My rating:  This is becoming meaningless, because I have watched them all SO MANY TIMES.  But probably 40.  

Oh my gosh I'm looking at my handwritten list and I didn't even include

MURIEL'S WEDDING
I guess it was just too obvious.  I'll do the rating first.  This one's not meaningless.

My rating:  500 viewings.  And I'm not kidding.  

Where do I begin?  There's so many scenes I could dissect.  Just a few:

• Muriel tries to gain her father's respect by getting a job interview.  Her father completely negates her accomplishment.  (The first time I brought poetry home that I had written, I was completely excited.  Writing was something I could do!  I showed my mom, and she frowned at me, and said, I guess that's okay, but you need to clean up your room.)
• Muriel escapes into her room and her music and her mirror, dreaming of a time when she'll be the chosen one.  (I've been there, completely dissociating from the real world by dreaming of a new boy walking onto the school bus and sitting with me, choosing me, not anyone else.) . 
• Muriel's "friends" make fun of her clothes and her music, and tell her flat-out that they don't want her to hang out with them anymore.  (My best friend one summer was suddenly my second-best bully in school that fall.)
• And that's just the first fifteen minutes or so.  Whew!

Muriel gets what she wants.  She gains the notoriety and respect from the popular crowd.  But then she suffers a real loss, and she learns what that notoriety and respect cost her.  She grows.  She changes.  She becomes more herself, and stands up to her father, who is forced to realize what he's done.  

Again, I saw this three times in the theater.  I wore out the videotape.  I have the dvd.  This movie has sustained me in some really dark times.  She did it; she got out, she built a new life, she changed who she was and apologized for what she'd done wrong.  She figured out what really mattered to her and became stronger for her experiences.

I watched all of these movies over and over, just hoping that I could, too.