MY MOVIE SHELF: Steel Magnolias

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 168  Days to go: 119

Movie #270:  Steel Magnolias

“Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”

When Steel Magnolias came out, that’s how I would describe it to people. How, one second I’m crying my eyes out and the next I’m dying of laughter, and how amazingly great that was. It was really the first time a movie had elicited that kind of bold physical reaction from me, and I’d be hard pressed to think of even a handful that have come out since that could do it even half as well. Steel Magnolias is a rare gem.

The story of six women living in Louisiana, Steel Magnolias feels like home to me. My mother’s family is from the deep south, and growing up we spent several weeks there every summer and sometimes in the winter as well. These people are my people. The characters of Steel Magnolias are people I recognize, with familiar habits and personalities and lifestyles. The gathering together of food to care for people who are suffering a hardship is commonplace. The catty but not malicious gossiping about everyone in town is just as common. The blending of church and community, of town functions and socializing at the beauty parlor are all rituals I’ve both witnessed and taken part in. That kind of authenticity and familiarity really helps bring the movie to life.

It’s often labeled a chick flick, as if that’s something to scoff at, but Steel Magnolias lifts up female relationships in a beautiful way. When Shelby (Julia Roberts) faces several health scares throughout the film, Truvy (Dolly Parton), Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine), Clairee (Olympia Dukakis) and Annelle (Daryl Hannah) are there for Shelby and her mother M’Lynne (Sally Field). Whether it’s to tell a joke or give a hug or just to grasp a hand in solidarity, these women support each other through all the ups and downs that come in life. Through laughter and tears and everything in between, these women stick together and build each other up.

I have to say, I never really related to Shelby the way I suppose I probably should have when I was younger. There’s an arrogance of youth that perpetuates the idea that nothing bad will ever befall them, and no one will ever die. I had that same arrogance, I swear, but Shelby always struck me as selfish and stubborn. She was also inordinately difficult toward M’Lynne, but perhaps that’s just part of the nature of mothers and daughters. I have been inordinately difficult with my own mother from time to time, and she remains the one person in the world who can drive me crazy at the drop of a hat. Still, Shelby and new husband Jackson (Dylan McDermott) both seemed so in-the-moment, unaware of risks and consequences and mortality. That’s always been sad to me, and one of many reason why I’ve always felt compassion toward M’Lynne.

I’ve always felt for Truvy, too, whose husband Spud (Sam Shepard) was always distant and rarely showed his love for her, even though it was always there. And I’ve loved Clairee’s color and humor and her desire to make everything more enjoyable. I’ve even commiserated for Annelle, who enters the film sort of lost and spends the vast majority of it trying to find her place. But most of all, I love Ouiser, because she and I share the same misanthropic tendencies, though I do openly love a lot more things than she does.

Steel Magnolias is full of important life lessons for any woman to internalize. Never have a groom’s cake at your wedding if it looks like a bleeding animal. Never allow your husband to shoot birds out of your trees. Listen to doctors when they tell you things. When someone screams they want to hit something, offer them up a hated individual. Tell people you love them more than your luggage, even if nobody knows what it’s supposed to mean. And most importantly, get someone to do calisthenics for you if you’re ever in a coma. (I would add that this person also be in charge of your leg shaving. It’s very important to have a girlfriend for this purpose. If I am ever in a coma, dear God, someone shave my legs for me.)

Also, always always always have a group of girlfriends you can count on. In many ways, they will be some of the most important relationships in your life.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Moonstruck

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 193  Days to go: 199

Movie #184:  Moonstruck

So, I could say a lot about Moonstruck and how it is a pretty solid representation of the kind of people I grew up around — my stepfather is half Greek, half Italian, so if you combined Moonstruck and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’d get a fair estimation of what his entire extended family is like. I was not at all like these people. I was a fair-skinned, blonde, introspective and relatively quiet child. Non-confrontational. Used to being alone. These people were never alone, and neither is anyone in Moonstruck.

I could also talk about the central romance between Loretta (Cher) and Ronny (Nicolas Cage), the engagement of Loretta and Johnny (Danny Aiello), the marriage of Rose (Olympia Dukakis) and Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia), and the expectations, similarities and differences of these three relationships. I could talk about the brothers, or Loretta’s relationship with her parents, or even Loretta’s parents’ relationship with her grandfather (Feodor Chaliapin Jr.) and how family is represented as both combative and enveloping, how the yelling and the sarcasm take nothing away from the ultimate supportiveness and importance of the family.

I could talk about how for years I planned (and, actually, still plan, maybe) to attend the funerals of my adversaries in a red dress.

I could talk about how the idea of luck Loretta puts forward deeply influences my own superstitions.

I could talk about all the representations of food in this movie (including the opening and closing credits song “That’s Amore”) and how they’ve stuck with me and influenced me over the years. (“Don’t get the greasy fish.” “You’ll eat this one bloody, it’ll feed you blood.” “Old man, you give those dogs another plate of my food, I’m gonna kick you ’til you’re dead.”)

And I could talk about Rose’s quest to discover why men chase women, even though she simply wants to be told what she already believes — that men fear death. Her dinner with Perry (John Mahoney), though, is a fascinating side trip in that endeavor. It’s electrically charged, and Perry responds to it. Rose does too, but she knows who she is. She’s comfortable with who she is. It’s not that she’s not drawn to him, because she is. She finds him amusing and intriguing. But she doesn’t have to act on her attraction, like others in the film, because she’s not in the same emotional place as the others.

What I need to talk about, however, is my first marriage.

I was really unhappy that last year of my first marriage, although I didn’t know it. Not exactly. I just felt off. I felt miserable. I wanted solitude. I wanted to be left alone to lie motionless on the couch watching TV. I didn’t even realize that was such textbook depression until much later, though I did at some point beg my husband to let me see a therapist. (He was very much against the idea, but eventually relented after who knows how many hours of me in tears on my knees, pleading with him.) By that point, though, I was aggressively withdrawing into a fantasy world, wanting less and less to do with my real one. I kept pushing further and further away and eventually I pushed him too far. This is not to say that he wasn’t a part of the problem as well; we both became incredibly petty and demanding in various ways, and we never really connected again on what we wanted or how we wanted to go about it. There was a time when I saw a very clear fork in the road, a way to salvage our marriage and a way to completely forsake it, but there was too much against us at that point and we couldn’t get on the same page. That wasn’t the end of things — there ended up being another eight months of heartbreak and anger and betrayal before I moved out, and another year after that before our divorce was finalized — but it was the beginning of the end, for sure. And all I could think about was Moonstruck and how terrified I was that I was the wolf Loretta accuses Ronny of being.

Ronny lost his hand to a bread slicer five years before and blames his brother for it because it cost him his fiancée and, in his mind, his life. “I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride!” Loretta tells him he’s a wolf, caught in the trap of the wrong love. To escape that trap, he “chewed” off his own hand. “And now you’re afraid, because you found out the big part of you is a wolf that has the courage to bite off its own hand to save itself from the trap of the wrong love.” I was terrified that this is what I did. That I’d deliberately sabotaged my marriage to get out of a relationship that was suffocating me. It didn’t occur to me at the time how much of myself had been lost through those years with him, or how I know longer knew who I was, but as it became clear how unhappy I’d been, I’d become more and more convinced I was that same wolf, maiming myself in order to be free. And if I could do it once, what’s to say I wouldn’t find myself in that situation again? What’s to say I wouldn’t cut out my own heart again? And have to start all over again? It was quite honestly the most frightened I have ever been.

However, as I gained more space and distance from that relationship, I gradually found myself again, and in finding myself, I found a relationship that complemented who I really was. I feel more confident now, because not only am I infinitely happier, I also know what’s at stake. I know the work and the commitment required to make a marriage work, and I know that it’s worth it. I’ve found my family, and family, as Moonstruck demonstrates, is everything.

Alla famiglia!