busy, not a reason

Thomas 2022-03-23 09:02:23

After watching the movie, it was already late at night. I lay on the bed and listened to the silence around the house except for the sound of the keyboard crackling. Thinking of my father, my eyes are wet.

There's so much to deconstruct in "Journey to the Family". The film begins with cheerful music, and the old father frank repairs his garden, sets up the table, and then goes to the supermarket to shop, and jokes with the sales clerk in a humorous way. I thought it was a family movie with the usual American lighthearted style. But when the phone calls came one after another and told Frank, "Dad, I'm sorry, we can't go home." Everyone said that they were involved in various affairs, and I saw that Frank was faintly lonely and helpless.

I remembered a piece of news from the New Year’s Eve, saying that a mother in a certain rural area spent a few days at home preparing a New Year’s Eve dinner, waiting for her child to come home for the Chinese New Year. But a phone call came home, and the child said that he would not be able to go home again this year. The old mother couldn't accept it for a while and had a neurological abnormality. When watching "Journey to the Family", this incident immediately surfaced, and seeing what happened to Frank, I really believe that this is not an exaggeration. In the future, I will never say that I am very busy and have no time to call home. Being busy cannot be a reason to ignore home.

Frank, who couldn't wait for his children, could only risk the risk of falling ill and take the medicine for thousands of miles to visit his children one by one. He misses his children so much, so much. So he dragged his suitcase on the road alone. After a brief reunion, Frank discovers the estrangement between him and the children. He could feel that they were hiding something from him, but he couldn't ask why, so that every time he said goodbye to a child, he would ask, are you happy? Are you having a good time?

Frank has high hopes for his four children and is so harsh with them that their children always tell their mothers what they don't want to talk to him about. But frank said, I used 10,000 meters of wire to get you what you are today, and the elderly father doesn't understand how the children can alienate and hide from him. They've all grown up, and Frank's memories of them are always from when they were kids. So in the end, Frank was lying on the bed and hallucinated that the scene where he was sitting and talking with the children in the courtyard of the house was actually what the children looked like when they were children. No matter how old the child is, in the eyes of the parents, it is the same as when he was a child.

Frank worked hard to raise his children to make them proud, but not only did he not get the results he wanted, but instead he got the gap between him and the children. At the end of the film, Frank finally understands that no matter what kind of person the child becomes, happiness is the most important thing. But one of the children, David, couldn't come back. At this time, Frank deeply apologized, but in the hallucination, David said Dad, it doesn't matter, I'm leaving, and Mom is waiting for me. Frank still looked lonely and alone.

In the end, the kids went home and spent Christmas with their dad. I was finally relieved, and fell asleep with a touch of warmth and sentimentality. dear dad, how are you? You rarely talk to me, I can only call my mother every time. But every time I go home and go out, you pick me up. In your heart, you may be very happy that I can be aggressive like a child of a veteran, but it is also reluctant to give up.

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Extended Reading
  • Pearlie 2022-03-27 09:01:12

    Not as good as the original

  • Ruby 2022-03-28 09:01:06

    De Niro, a gangster boy, has always been a tough guy. I like his smile very much. It turns out that he can also play a kind and funny father. I can only feel that being a good father is too difficult, and there will always be some estrangement with the children of the next generation, and there is a distance and courtesy between conversations. The last sentence of the priceless family is self-knowledge

Everybody's Fine quotes

  • Rosie: We could just talk to mom.

    Frank Goode: Oh, but you couldn't just talk to me?

    Rosie: Well she was a good listener, you were a good talker.

    Frank Goode: Well so that's good, we made a good team.

  • Art Gallery Girl: He used to say that if it wasn't for his dad he never would have become an artist. He said he would have ended up painting walls, and that dogs pee on walls...