When Movies Move You
Sometimes you see the right film at the right time in your life.
Once in a while you get lucky with the timing, and the story absolutely ruptures you.
It’s a beautiful thing.
It’s why artists make art. When it works, it there’s this moment of shared human experience.
I love being moved by movies. But it’s always a delicate matter of timing, and timing can be tricky.
Sometimes it’s a matter of experience—having been through something similar to the protagonist.
Sometimes it’s a matter of a movie delivering humanity and beauty (or ugliness, absurdity, or something else). Either way, good timing is necessary for you to blindside your schema and worldviews and be rocked by a great film.
Here are the movies that moved me over the years. Perhaps you’ll be blessed with the same good timing.
Movies that Moved Me:
American Beauty
— age 15 — was probably the first movie I recognized as art over entertainment. It was definitely my first movie obsession. Everyone has a little Lester Burnham in them, sure, and a lot of the suburban satire hit close to home. The illusion of status, materialism, marriage, and even sexuality unwinds just so elegantly before your eyes. I still have the screenplay on my shelf.
Little Miss Sunshine
— age 16— is still my favorite dark comedy since “American Beauty.” The writing in the family scenes are so tight, I could equally picture the dinner scenes on the theater stage. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll lose 15 pounds.
Y Tu Mamá También
— age 17 — hit me hard because every character struggles with growing up. At a time when the harsh realities of life are setting in, it helped me realize that it’s an eternal struggle.
Also, it’s the road trip movie to which all road trip movies must be compared.
City of God
— age 18 — is a Scorcese-inspired gangster epic, but it’s more like a Dickens story that captures a Tale of Two Rios, following an Oliver Twist-like boy named Rocket who’s caught in the crossfire of the cops and the gangs. I think I saw this sophomore year of college, and it’s easily in my top 3. It’s the perfect marriage of literary invention and modern reality.
Lost in Translation
— age 19 — hit me right in the feels. It was perfect for my sophomore slump depression. Love that cannot be is far more beautiful than tragic.
Adaptation
— age 20 — showed me the story is both a craft and an art…and that nobody after Charlie Kauffman will ever get away with it again.
“You wrote yourself into your own movie? That’s weird” says the main character’s brother. Writer’s block will never be more meta.
My latest:
Blue is The Warmest Color
—age 22 — “Blue” is a love story that triumphs and never gives in to the obvious. Told through radical closeups and a bleakness evocative of “Lost In Translation,” it’s rare you feel so one with a protagonist. Now that I have a little more experience with the ways of romance, it really struck me with its rawness. It’s a (perhaps directorially self-indulgent) 3 hours of runtime, but it’s taken a few days to detach my mind from Adèle’s. I’d say that’s a success.
This isn’t a definitive list of movies that will rock you. It’s simply a chronicle of what worked for me.
As Steve Jobs once said about relationships:
“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Keep looking for that next thing that moves you. It’s a constant search.