Parenthood, the film

Twenty years later, and that film grabs me and doesn't let me go.

I loved it when it came out in 1989 (Primarily for the cavalcade of acting talent), but as I have gone through the progression of being a father, it calls to me louder and louder.

Dianne Wiest, Jason Robards and Steve Martin really pull it off, and it is the only movie I have ever seen that Keanu Reeves has added something to.

He delivers the line(s) of the picture after Wiest says that Garry (played by an unrecognizable Joaquin Phoenix) needs a man around the house:

"Well, it depends on the man. I had a man around. He used to wake me up every morning by flicking lit cigarettes at my head. He'd say, "Hey, asshole, get up and make me breakfast." You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish! But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."

 

agreed. excellent flick.

 

Big fan of the movie. A Ron Howard film, no?

And Leaf Phoenix, as Joaquin was known then, is definitely recognizable -- but as his brother, River. I don't know how old he was at the time, but he definitely looked like his brother.

Which dead-too-soon actor would have been better - River Phoenix or Heath Ledger?

 

The smallest kid steals the movie for me, whether knocking himself out with a bucket on his dome, or sporting the holsters and cowboy hat in the nude.

 

Ledger... landslide.

 

I love the line about guts spilling onto the floor, slipping around on the guts, and then making balloon animals. Greatness.

 

"If she's so damn brilliant, why is she sitting in the neighbor's car?"

"Do you have to throw up?"
"Okay" (Huge spew of vomit)
Well, are you going to help or are you just going to look at her?
I'm waiting for her head to spin around."

Great flick.

 

One of the fascinating things (like trainwreck fascinating) about the movie is how and why anyone would be with Martha Plimpton.

 

Or that she was River Phoenix's girlfriend, and played his brother's sister in Parenthood

 

That scene where Jason Robards tells Steve Martin that the worrying as a parent never stops, even when the sons (in this case) are in their 30s and have children of their own, is one of my favorites, in any movie, of all time.

As a 20 something watching it in 1989, I thought my parents didn't have to worry once I got out of HS and this kind of woke me up about that.

Now, as a father, man I definitely understand that view.