Director: Matt Ross
Writer: Matt Ross
Foxfire Category: Fine Wine
One-line Review: a stirring mediation on fatherhood
MPAA Rating: R
Ben Cash is a cyncial man. He has retreated into the woods of the Pacific Northwest with his family, leaving an overweight and undereducated society to rot while his family builds a new Eden. His kids are fit and lean in body and mind. They read Dostoyevski and listen to Bach. Ben meets their questions with honest answers. Propositions are debated fairly and openly. The kids are trained to survive in the wilderness, to reason like philosophers, and to despise mediocrity. Ben is preparing them for the real world.
Something is missing. There’s no Eve in this Eden. Like our first mother, Ben’s wife, Leslie, has been driven from the garden. She is mentally ill. Her father and mother who both blame Ben for her condition have paid for her to be tended by professionals. Unfortunately for the Cash family, not even the professionals can save her. The demons win: she slits her wrist. Eve is no more.
The family’s desire to attend Leslie’s funeral and honor her last wishes drives them to brave that “real” world—the world Ben has been innoculating them against. They encounter a normal family, a suburban grocery store, a diner’s menu, fat Americans, and many other curiosities along the way. The trip reveals the world to them and them to the world. Neither party is impressed.
East of Eden and without a mother, the family begins to unravel. The real world punches their idyllic family in the gut. In a moment, Ben’s confidence in his abilities as a father collapses. I think he comes to realize that he could never prepare them for the real world unless he faced it himself. He has failed them by not leading them. So he quits. Thankfully, that’s not where the credits roll. Instead, his kids rally. He repents. Together, they complete their mission to honor their mother’s wishes and the movie ends in a new garden. It’s no paradise, but it bears the marks of an exceptional family adapting to life in a new world.
This is a wonderful movie—but not a movie that should be chugged. Give it a swirl or two in the glass before imbibing and even then, sip and savor. Fair warning, it’s probably going to be an acquired taste. As an example of what I mean, consider this. The Cash family articulate all sorts of philisophical and metaphysical ideas throughout this film, many of which I disagree with. After all, I am one of those Christians that they are allowed to make fun of. The first taste is bitter. But I sympathize with the plight of a father who notices the bloated minds and bodies of our culture and aspires to something better. I want to raise my children to be better, to be more human. How to succeed without falling into the chasm of cynicism on one side or plunging off the cliff of cultural accomodation on the other is a real struggle. I think the answer to walking that path is found in Christianity—and I do not mean in the risk-free, Zoom-0r-die, entertain me forever kind of Christiantiy. If you can manage to differeniate between the ideals of the Cash family and the ideals of the movie, I think you’ll find the lingering taste to be sweet and savory.