I’ve been wanting to see this movie since I first saw the trailer (which according to this YouTube video is already over two years old!). It’s rare that I’m able to actually 1) remember and 2) finally watch movies that fall into this category. It’s probably true of books, shows, and hobbies too. Thank goodness for Black Friday sales and the sharing economy!
You can tell this isn’t a Netflix movie because the trailer tastefully gives away just enough to keep this movie in the back of my head for as long as it has. Genius architect Bernadette Fox (Cate Blanchett) runs away from the home she’s created with her Microsoft-exec husband Elgie Branch (Billy Crudup) and wholesome daughter Bee/Buzzy/Balakrishna (Emma Nelson). The trio reunites in Antarctica after barely escaping an attack by the Russian mafia and horrendous seasickness.
I’m shamefully not too familiar with other roles by Cate, but she gave so much color to the characters that I have to applaud her here before I say any more about how this movie made me ugly-cry. Everything about Cate’s Bernadette — the way she hides behind her sunglasses and scarves, her Manjula monologues, her strength as a mother — these careful and intentional performances made her such a perfect Bernadette and carried me along so well through the movie. It’s been about a week since I finished the movie, and I can still so clearly picture the optimism in her eyes, the exhaustion and fear in her posture. She is good!
Thinking back on it, maybe the universe was trying to tell me something by allowing me to watch this movie now instead of two years ago. At the “big reveal” when Bernadette meets with her old friend and professor, she finally unravels all her frustration ranging from the exclusive moms at her school to Seattle’s 7-way intersections. He calmly tells her that she needs to get back to work and create. Ever since the impact of losing her 20-mile house and burying herself in infant Bee’s health, her hands had been idle. She has become a menace to society.
Like how she ends up passed out like a drunkard on the pharmacy’s street-facing posh couch underneath the beautiful Chihuly she identified. Or causing a mudslide into her neighbor’s home after blackberries had taken over her land.
Menace. To. Society.
During my “much needed,” “well-deserved,” but really just long-awaited holiday PTO, I like to think I did some productive soul searching. (Yes I did watch “Soul,” no pun intended). For the past few years — ever since graduating really — I have lacked a hobby. I had finished the track that was set out for me: go to school, get good grades, go to a better school, graduate with Honors, get a good job, get a better job. Rinse and repeat optional.
I was spending my time doing something, but I can’t even really remember. Probably cycling through phases of intense productivity, Netflix, binging food and drink, saddening emptiness. It’s scary to think about! I remember in “Fruits Basket” there’s a scene where Yuki tells Tohru he enjoys gardening because of the sense of purpose and power it gives him. As the creator of the garden, the plants depend on him for everything. In return, the plants grow for him. Creepiness aside, I feel like I have a similar relationship with creating (vs consuming) content. It feels nice to have an output. Not just because that’s how I have been trained to determine value, but because of the satisfaction or contentedness you get from having completed something. Kind of like how it feels to cross things off a list, I guess.
But when I look back at what I’ve accomplished outside of work, I honestly see very little. Perhaps I, like Bernadette, had become my own menace to society. Passionate people and talented people are lucky to have something close to their hearts. There are many things I enjoy doing, but I’m not sure if there are any that I love…any that I must do or else I will stow away on a research boat to get to the southernmost point on the planet.
I think it’s the final scenes in the movie, when Bernadette gets the glimmer back in her eye, that I felt the most excited. She had found herself again, and was on a mission to do something that made her happy. I love that even though she had fought majorly with Elgie, her first instinct was to call home to ask for their approval before she started the project because they are her family.
There’s Bernadette. To many more visions.
