The Way, Way Back

As of late, I’ve started watching movies more regularly. My mother would be disappointed. She’d rather I read.

Unlike television or video games, movies stay with you. They create characters with which we can identify. No one identifies with Special Agent Gibbs. Or Phil from Modern Family. Or Michael from The Office. Movies permit deeper, more complex role-playing and more intimate, less plot-focused stories. A good movie, then, is like a good book.

Tonight I watched The Way, Way Back.

I didn’t understand the title until the very end during a poignant scene in which the protagonist’s mother climbs from the front to the way, way back of her (soon-to-be) ex-boyfriend’s station wagon. I never had a station wagon growing up, but I can only assume that the seat in the back that so awkwardly faces the driver behind you was colloquially referred to as “the way, way back.”

The title’s fitting. The story is about a boy who spends his summer at his mother’s boyfriend’s beach house. The boyfriend, played by Steve Carrell, has a daughter, and she accompanies. She’s your stereotypical stuck-up, immature teenager. Carrell plays a dickish boyfriend, and he does quite well for the role (I haven’t seen him in many non-comedic roles). The mother is an insecure woman, attempting to find happiness after her last failed relationship and seemingly attempting to find happiness for her son, the protagonist, who doesn’t know that his father, in San Diego, doesn’t want him.

The story is told from the boy’s point of view. The plot is mostly irrelevant, moving only to assist with character development. The boy isn’t having fun but meets an attractive girl in a neighboring beach house who also isn’t having fun. The boy is awkwardly shy, but through happenstance meets the beach bum owner of a water park and finds a job. As a result of the friendships he makes with flawed, awkward, but truly salt-of-the-earth employees at this water park, he gains confidence, and he’s able to develop a healthy friendship with the girl, whose parents are also divorced.

The point of the story isn’t what happens, but why it happens. The what is that the boy witnesses Carrell making out with another woman and later calls him out on it. The mother, until the movie’s very end, cannot bring herself to break up with Carrell. And then she does. Oh, and the boy kisses the girl. Or vice versa? And movie over. So basically, a seemingly happy couple with kids of their own go to the beach, shit happens, and we’re left at the end to assume that the couple breaks up.

The depth of the movie, then, isn’t in the plot but in the themes. One is that kids watch their parents; and, more broadly, kids watch adults. Throughout the summer, the mother seems interested in finding personal happiness; if her son finds happiness as well, great, but she seems to assume that his happiness will come on her terms or as a result of her happiness.

We know this can’t happen. We know that if the mother learned how to find happiness as a child, then she and her child are not all that different, but many, many adults think as the mother does, ignoring their children and growing bitterness. Children are much more observant than we give them credit for. At such a young age, they watch in wonder — they watch television, they listen to their teachers, they explore their neighborhoods, and they observe their parents. It’s their nature. It’s how we mature, through observation.

I’m pointing up, probably for my own benefit, how important it is that parents (or adults) check themselves in front of their children. I’m not sure children are great at discernment, so they might not know whether mom or dad is faking happiness or ambivalence in order to keep the child protected. But it rarely matters. There’s not too much to discern when mom and dad are screaming at each other. Although kids may not discern too well, they observe keenly. When parents lose control and let their emotions take over, whether in a single moment or in the course of an entire relationship, the child sees what’s happening. He may not understand the complexities and the causes, but he does know what’s happening.

In the presence of your children, patience is selflessness.

The Way, Way Back

A second theme is that inspiring a child is a prime satisfaction. Money, fame, and celebrity status are all about me. The rat race is all about me. I can try to point the finger elsewhere and claim that I’m working for my wife, for my kids. And while that may be true on the surface, the real drive, the real focus is the achieved success. How beautiful it is when people are selfless enough to take a moment, to sacrifice their time or money, and just be involved with someone else. This isn’t about aggressively looking to inspire people; inspiration isn’t something we strive to do. It’s something that just results from selflessness.

A life worth living is one that gives itself away without any expectation of a return. But seriously, how often do we do that? Usually there’s at least something in it for us. We’re at least hoping that whomever we’re with will at least think we’re pretty cool.

But to just give yourself? It’s one of the most beautiful events. And it just so happens that it’s no coincidence that the Savior of the world did just that. Gave himself to death for us, not expecting that any of us would elect to live perfectly holy lives as a sort of “thank you.” He just did it because it was necessarily good. And he wasn’t some rich, famous celebrity. See, the hero of the movie is the beach bum owner of the water park. Not that this guy had achieved much in life, and not that his was a tale of success, and not that anyone should strive to live like he does. But in a single act of involved kindness, he changed the direction of a kid’s summer. And because the movie’s bigger than the movie, the implication is that he changed the direction of the kid’s entire childhood.

If a movie is thematically didactic — if it causes you to think when the credits start rolling — then it’s time well spent. Sit down with “The Way, Way Back,” and you’ll be glad you did.