Family

My therapist told me (unnecessarily) that you can choose your friends, not your family. He did this I imagine to suggest to me that by getting out more into the world, I will meet more people who have interests in common with me and that while you are born into a family with no choice as to who that family is, your friendships are largely of your own choosing, and reflect strongly on who you truly are.

Well, duh.


I am very satisfied with the family I was given, with a couple of notable exceptions. They aren't or weren't perfect, but neither am I. I am proud of the things my parents passed on to me; honesty, dignity, generosity, kindness, a sense of self. I have no complaints there.

But I do understand what my therapist was trying to say. My niece recently came out and was gifted my late mother's car. I love my niece; she is mixed up in a lot of ways, but again, who isn't? We have our share of disagreements, but in general we get along well and I am pretty sure that we each know we love each other.

The problem is that I may never see her again. She lives many states away, and her poor finances prevent her from coming out very often. I could of course go visit her, but it's different in that her home was never my home, while my home was hers. There is little to do in her area, and she wouldn't have much time to play host, as she is watching her young sons pretty much all day long and when she's not she's being a housewife to her husband.

I do love her. She was like my little sister for a long time and I guess I always foolishly harbored the thought that someday she might come out here and add to my sense of family sometime. I always knew instinctively that would never happen. She would not be happy here; her friends and now her family are no longer here, and her life is now completely centered around her new home. It is so easy to be angry at her for that; but it is not rational. She is just living her life the best she can and isn't trying to hurt me.

But now that my mom is gone, and my niece has her car, there seems to be less and less reason for her ever to make the trip again. She can only come when she receives financial help, and her husband is never able to take off enough work to make the trip worthwhile. And she would never travel alone or without her kids.

Family is special, wonderful. But there has to be more. People leave you, they die or they move away. It's the way things work. There's no fault to be placed, no blame to be assigned. It's just people following their destiny. But when you base so much of your life on your family, you kind of secretly hope they will stick around. You assume there's an implicit agreement that someone will always be around to care about you and help take care of you. It's a foolish assumption, of course, but it's comforting to delude yourself sometimes.

Only at some point you need to cast off the delusion. People need to make connections, not just because your family will more than likely leave you at some point, but because even while they are around it's not fair to them to place so much of your emotional investment in so narrow a space. I guess that''s what I did with my family; I did it without even thinking, and I think maybe they did the same so I may have come by it honestly.

The world can be a cold hard place without family. It is even colder and harder without friends. I guess the fact that I have almost none of the former shouldn't stop me from trying to generate some of the latter. I really don't have any choice, if I want to live a happy life, or even survive.

I miss my family.

Review of "Skeleton Key"

I wasn't precisely sure what to expect from "The Skeleton Key". I had seen the previews of course, which seemed to indicate that the movie was about a young girl's encounter with a Southern "house of mystery" and all the attendant plot devices; secret rooms, people who aren't what they seem to be, lurking danger around every corner, etc. But as always I avoided the specific plot details. One of the most grating phenomena of the 20th century has got to be the inability of a secret to be kept, particularly when it comes to movie plots. There is no way to "untell" a plot twist, right?

But I have to admit I was a little skeptical of a modern film being able to pull off something in this long neglected genre. I figured that we are all too jaded and knowing to fall for swinging doors, candlelit hallways, gothic family secrets and the like. But to my utter and happy surprise, it kind of worked.

"The Skeleton Key" concerns a young hospice worker (played by Kate Hudson) who quits her hospital job to care for a dying man at a remote New Orleans mansion. She encounters a strange mystery there, as the mansion houses an attic with a secret room in which someone or something seems to reside. The man's wife appears to hide whatever secret the room possesses, and there are rumors of voodoo, witchcraft and a dark history of the mansion. As Hudson's character delves deeper into the mystery, she realizes that her life and very soul may well be in jeopardy.

There's much more of course, but to say more would reveal too much. Suffice it to say that while "Skeleton Key" isn't really turning over any new stones, it does hold your interest and more than adequately honors the "old dark house" genre. Hudson's always winning personality really wins the day here; she is spunky and sexy without being annoying (not always an easy task). We feel for her and want her to be OK. It's not an easy task being a modern day "heroine in peril" because you have to work hard to rise above that old stereotype and still engender sympathy. Hudson does so quite well here; she is particularly effective in the scenes where she has to decide whether to stay or leave the mansion and when she is contemplating the father she wasn't there for at the end. She's a very impressive actress, one whom I have to admit I haven't been all that familiar with up until now.

Gena Rowlands is equally effective as the alternately sympathetic and menacing wife of the ailing John Hurt. Rowlands shines in a role that eschews all notions of glamour, and Hurt works miracles with what can generously be called a "thankless role". It's nice to see two veterans getting some fun, juicy roles in an industry that doesn't exactly reward the aging process.

The film is of course, not perfect. I really thought they relied too heavily on the "whoosing" sound effect of Hudson encountering someone around a corner ; the scares don't have to be overt to be effective, and by the fourth or fifth occurrence of this, I was getting a little jaded.
I also really question the logic of some of the historical events that supposedly happened in the mansion. One key event really made no sense in terms of character; the people doing it just wouldn't be that stupid to do this particular thing at that particular time. It's nothing a good proofreading (and rewriting) couldn't overcome, but it was troublesome. There may be other gaps of logic upon a second viewing, of course. But to be fair, a movie like this is bound to have a few of these and we probably shouldn't overworry these things, rather just sort of go with the flow and cut the film some slack. For instance, a picky reviewer would point out the very styled and model-like appearance of Hudson seems pretty incongruent with her character's job. But I would never be so petty...

I liked the development of a kind of "mystical feud" between Hudson's and Rowland's characters and would actually have liked to have seen this played up more. And even though this is quibbling a bit, I would have gone for more of John Hurt and less of the annoying (and obviously fake accented) lawyer who tries to charm/warn/whatever else Hudson's character. Alas, it is not a perfect world.

And though this is not a perfect film, I'd tell my friends to go see it. I really was one step behind it most of the way, there is some believable local color realism, the music is pretty good and the acting of Hudson, Rowlands and Hurt is fine and engaging. Buy a large popcorn and pop, turn off your logic monitor and enjoy!