I love the weekend. It’s time for relaxing and for thinking about how to relax. It’s been awhile since I last watched a movie and it’s been an even longer while since I last sobbed watching a movie. Watching a movie on DVD at home where there are not another hundred or so people next to you, you find yourself fulling immersing yourself and embracing the emotions that come with it. You can cry and laugh as loud as you want. You aren’t going to be disturbing the person next to you. So yes I cried when watching “The Descendants”, but it was a good one.
“The Descendants” isn’t one of those action movies that keep you grabbing to the edge of your seat or hiding behind a pillow, when it gets all bloody. It’s one of those movies where you watch a family, lives and emotions unfurl. It’s harsh reality beautifully portrayed.
It’s about a family, a husband and two daughters and what happens after the mother is seriously injured in a boating accident.
You might think, so it’s another one of those movies when everyone sobs and gets through it. Well there’s more. A possible death of a loved one or family member brings up all kinds of emotions. There’s anger, denial and most often regret.
In the first scene of the movie, the lawyer husband and land baron, sits by his wife who is laying in bed in a coma and hoping that she wakes up. They had not spoken in days and months. He wished he had lived his life differently and spent more time with his wife. But life has passed by and he cannot bring her back. Their marriage had quietly disintegrated despite a seemingly happy life with a large house and money for all their needs.
There is no one cause, but a mixture of reasons. He was probably too focused on his work and his wife busy raising the children. Matt King discovers he hardly knows his daughters. He doesn’t know what they like, don’t like nor what kind of persons they have become. He didn’t know his wife in the past ten years of their life together. He had neglected her needs. He had been too self focused. He lost touch with the personal and emotional aspect of his family.
It makes you think really.
What is it you want out of life? What is important in your life? Families like a tree require regular pruning and watering. Once absent, they will wilt and die. Relationships and emotions have to be handled with care and nurtured with love. Only then will the tree blossom into a strong and beautiful one. Think about what you really want. Once you have it, focus and do not lose sight.
Life once lived cannot be taken back.
Don’t end up sitting by the bed of someone you love full of regrets about all you hadn’t done, thinking about all you should’ve done. Live your life and do what you want to do, but don’t forget about those most important to you. There’s more to life than just fame and money.
It’s no wonder this movie won an Oscar and several other awards. It’s reality beautifully made.
Having "Me" Time 