Father Like I Wanna

In which Nancy Meyers makes a French-styled film in America

I just watched The Intern (2015), with my incredibly talented, smart, and beautiful wife, and these are my thoughts about it. Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, the film deals with the intersection of work, family, and life satisfaction through two interlocking stories, one dealing with Robert De Niro’s retired widower and newly minted (at the perfect age of seventy) office intern, and the other with Anne Hathaway’s brilliant fashion-start up entrepreneur, whose brand new, rapidly expanding online business is named About the Fit. The interplay of our expectations and the characters’ desires plays out like a French domestic drama, something I highly doubt Meyers gets credit for from critics at large.

While there is a betrayal in the film, it’s not the one I’d imagined from seeing the marketing materials, and the way it unfolds is surprising and unexpected, and avoids the clichéd workplace climbing we’ve come to expect from films that heavily feature office workplaces.

Ultimately the film defies the template we’ve seen in so many movies about modern women, where steep tradeoffs have to be made in order for the leading ladies to have families and careers. Familial satisfaction and the outward ordinances of modern Western-style “success” clash incessantly and demand that we serve two masters simultaneously, but we all know that is impossible. What is needed is balance, and Hathaway’s character finds it, not by denying one side of her heart or the other, but by placing her affection (despite very compelling reasons to reject her husband) where it most belongs: on her family. That emphasis allows her to accept her situation and gives her the courage to stay who she is while finding the beginnings of balance. The film ends on a note of acceptance as Hathaway and De Niro do Tai Chi in the park. Ultimately, life is about the fit.

Oh yeah, and De Niro is hilarious, too.

I'm Sorry, Orson Scott Card

I have a new favorite book: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It's about a father and a son. It's about a world gone mad and bad. It's about personal fidelity in a time of prolonged crisis. It's about growing up. It's about transmitting sure and certain ideals down the ages, one child at a time. It's about hope, and it's about goodness. What do you do when all the trappings of your life have been stripped away? What do you do when it's just your family, against, seemingly, the entire world? What are you willing to do simply to survive? These are all questions that are answered by the lives of the protagonists in The Road.

The plot: A Father and his Son travel on a road through postapocalyptic America, heading for the coast, and they know not what else. And their road is not safe.

This book begs you to ask yourself the question, "Am I carrying the fire?"

I don't want to give away what this means, so I won't. You'll just have to read the book for yourself. But, I will say, it's pretty important to know whether we are or not.

On a personal note, I learned through reading this book that when I have sons, I want (and need) to teach them what it means to be a man. I need to teach them who we are, and why we do what we do. I need to teach how and why I became what I am. And how they can do the same for themselves. I can think of few things more powerful than a father teaching his son. Of course, I don't have any sons, so if there are any interested parties out there, you know where to find me. *Wink, wink*