Daddy issues

I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw,
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.


Apologies. Every so often, a girl's just gotta quote Plath.

And tonight, I do so with purpose. The last time I went to see the woman to whom I often refer as simply "The Psychic," I'd spent the entire previous night awake with a guy with whom I knew good and well I had no future. And in that session, she told me that I'd been that very same guy's father in a previous life (sorry, honey, she said it... I know you think it's crap, but I'm not making it up). And she also issued forth a rather ominous warning that women tend to marry their fathers, regardless of the anxieties exacted upon us by our fathers ... a la the Plath quotation above. Truth be told, this is a recurrent quandary for me anyway. While I've gotten along rather well, for some years now, with my own father, I certainly do not want to live out my duration with a knee-jerkily reactive and jealous person such that he is.

Alongside this train of thought regarding fathers in general, and my own in particular, is a train of thought about what an audience in general and me in particular looks for in a film. Recently, a friend of mine made an assumption that I would enjoy a particular movie-- of a genre I generally deem "a waste of time"-- because he thought I had something in common with the main character. Now, really, I do not seek out films to which I hope to "relate" in some way. This idea of relatability strikes me as very Oprah Book Club...and simply not a priority for my in terms of what I look for in an aesthetic experience. After all, if someone makes a movie about it, it damn well better be more interesting that my little life, right?

That said, every once in a while, a little movie shows up in which I recognize some aspect that is so particularly human that I can't help but acknowledge seeing an all-to-familiar molecule of myself therein. And it is Come Early Morning that reflects back some of my sins-of-the-father issues. This is Joey Lauren Adams' directorial debut, and damn if it isn't pretty good. Ashley Judd plays a drunk-a-little-too-often girl who seems to be working far too hard to scrounge up some male affection. And when some poor guy actually delivers, she transmogrifies into a polluted dervish of boy-repellent. Why? Because, of course, her father is a taciturn, affection-withholding, artistically stunted, drunken ne'er-do-well himself!

The thing is, all of the characters in this film seem as though they've been plucked right outta family therapy on Party of 5 or something. Their foibles are nothing new. However, they're all just a little bit smarter than prime time television. In one scene, Judd's character goes to speak with her father-- invites herself into his home, because he won't do so himself-- and ostensibly, he's heard through the small-town rumor mill about all the man-trouble into which she's gotten herself. But she just wants to talk. Instead, he plays his guitar for her. And at first, this frustrates her-- until she realizes that this is how he--sufferer of extreme stage-fight that he is-- lets her in and accesses his own conflicted feelings about their relationship. So, while this moment doesn't, by any means, repair thr rended fabric of their relationship, she suddenly realizes that she'd misinterpreted her own father for pretty much her entire life. That's a big damn deal, you know?

And were I to happen upon such a moment in my own life, I'd like to think I'd know I'd accomplished something. So, dammit, although I'd really rather shy away from insinuating my own life onto all these celluloid stories, well, here, it seems to have happened. And, as a result, it seems I'm unable to offer much commentary other than "I like this movie a whole lot." And, yeah, I know, it's not really about me at all.

However, seeing as this post is already all about me, I now ask, self-servingly, what does it say about me that I relate more to a furious sexpot relationship-saboteur than a kicky urban career girl who actually manages to land her (trite, one-dimensional, tiresome) boyfriend/job-of-choice in the end? I shall not name to the movie to which I'm referring here, but let's just say, I've already disparaged it in a previous post...