“I just thought there would be more.”
On the mom-spoken lines that live in my head c/o Boyhood, My So-Called Life, Don’t Worry Darling, Fleishman Is in Trouble & more
It is probably a combination of motherhood, middle age and sentimentality that makes me think of moms in certain TV shows and movies more and more. I am fascinated by programs I first saw before becoming a mother, thinking how I felt back then, which characters I related to, whether I gave much thought to the mother characters, versus now, as a mom to young kids.
Post-motherhood, certain movies and TV show scenes hit differently: they feel heavier, scarier, sometimes unbearable, because they are now more relatable. Specific lines uttered about and by mothers are unforgettable and often, haunting because I can now more realistically imagine feeling exactly like this or that maternal figure. As a daughter and mother, as well as a partner, I have a lot more compassion and tolerance for characters in movies and shows who mother and co-parent. I often find myself thinking in a random scene, but what about this person’s mom? How are they feeling? What would the mom say?
I am not referring to how motherhood and mothers are portrayed onscreen necessarily, because that is a bigger and different conversation. I am interested in the one-liners, in the dialogue between mothers and children, in the scene(s) where the mother says or does something so excruciatingly painful or uncomfortable, I am forever haunted by it. (Side note: If you are interested in the portrayal of mothers and motherhood in TV and movies, there were some brilliant essays that came out around the release of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s adaptation of The Lost Daughter. Some of my favourites are this one (NYT magazine) and this one (Vanity Fair).
Before continuing, a quick warning: the next section will have some movie and TV spoilers (mostly older stuff) but more importantly, CW/TW for mentions of child loss.
There were many memorable scenes in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling but the line that has stayed with me the most from that movie is when Bunny, the character played by Olivia Wilde, confesses to Alice (Florence Pugh) she knows she is living in a virtual reality. When Alice tells Bunny her children are not real, Bunny replies she knows they are not real, but she chooses to live in the virtual reality because it is the only place she can be with her kids. The implication being that Bunny’s children are no longer alive in her real life.
A line I often think about from Boyhood, the 2014 coming-of-age drama by Richard Linklater is the one at the end of the movie. Patricia Arquette, the mom, is saying goodbye to her son, who is heading off to college. At one point, while her son is in the other room, she breaks down and says: “I just thought there would be more.” I always get super choked up thinking about that line and about Arquette’s character questioning herself, her identity as a mother and what comes next now that her children are grown and gone. Thankfully I discovered Slate offers another perspective about how that can absolutely not be the end of the story for Arquette’s character and it made me feel better.
On a different sense of loss, an unimaginable and horrific one, a scene from the 2003 movie, 21 Grams that haunts me 20 years later is when Naomi Watts’s character, who loses her children in a car accident, lays in bed bereft replaying a voicemail of her children’s voices over and over again. I mean, I can barely write that line and would love to erase that scene from my mind forever. Although it is a movie I saw long before becoming a mother, it is that much more heart-wrenching thinking about it now. It is the only scene I remember from that movie. While I was searching online to confirm that this scene in fact happened (I didn’t want to watch it again but wanted to make sure I was remembering correctly), I found a profile written about Naomi Watts around that time by none other than, Taffy Brodesser-Akner.
If you know the work of Brodesser-Akner, you will not be surprised by my flawless segue way here to another one of her creative projects: Fleishman Is In Trouble and the many brilliant one-liners said by by Lizzy Caplan’s character, a suburban mom missing her youth. My friends over at Mother Tongue magazine posted some great memes not long ago:
And because I love a full-circle moment, Claire Danes, who plays Rachel in Fleishman also starred in the beloved 1990’s teen coming-of-age series, My So-Called Life. If you grew up in North America in the 90s (apologies to my younger readers and those who don’t know the show), you’re probably familiar with Angela Chase. I used to watch the show weekly with my mom in the 90s, swooning over Jordan Catalano and yes, the way he leaned. That Buffalo Tom episode was the best.
But now, I think a lot more about Patty (played by Bess Armstrong), Angela’s mom, who not only had to put up with a questionable haircut, a super bitchy teen daughter but also, a cheating husband. I want to give Patty a big hug and tell her she’s doing an amazing job.
Here is a transcript of a conversation from the show between Patty (the mother) and Angela (the teen daughter). For context, Angela calls Patty when her friend, Rayanne overdoses. Sadly, I only took one conversation analysis class during my linguistics MA, so I am not equipped to break this all down for you. However, the part where Patty tells Angela she is “scared as hell” but also trusts her teen daughter is a lot to take in as a mom. Analyze that! Only recently did I realize this episode, the 10th in the one-and-only season is called, “Other People’s Mothers”.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, especially on any of the motherhood-related movie/TV scenes or one-liners that resonate with you or keep you up at night. Let the (fictional) moms do some talking because they (we) deserve to know there is always more.
As always, thank you for reading.
For my multilingual mothers, if you are celebrating Easter this weekend, here is a reminder from my brilliant online friends Diandra @bilingualplaydate and Mónica @vivakidslearning about the invisible mental load of raising bilingual and bicultural children, especially around a holiday. I am struggling with this myself as will likely forego a common Polish Easter tradition this weekend. I know it’s the right decision for a number of reasons but there is still a lot of guilt.
There is so much I cannot watch or read now that I am a mother. Violence, harm to children, true crime. Hell, even some marvel movies, but I could just be burnt out on them.
My sister’s best friend growing up just died due to drugs - and I’m terrified of when my son is older and what he could encounter. Will I one day experience a similar scene like Angela’s and Patty’s? Will I be able to tell my son that I trust him? But what if he’s the friend? What then?
There is one scene in a movie between a parent and a child that makes me tear up every time, and it’s weird and unexpected. The Hulk with Edward Norton. Liv Tyler plays his love interest and her father is the bad guy. Her father rolls up in a tank to try and take the Hulk down but Liv steps in front of the tank and screams “DAD!” You don’t know until this moment that the stern, grey mustachioed military man is her dad. But you hear in her scream her begging him to listen to her and you know that in the past he has not listened. I hope with all my heart that my son never has to step in front of a (hopefully) metaphorical tank to get me to listen.
Brilliantly written. Thank you for this!