Being a daddy’s girl myself, I find the dynamics between fathers and daughters very fascinating. We rely so heavily on them to help mold us into the women we will become, and when they are not there or depend on us too much it can affect us for the rest of our lives.
These are not the picture perfect father and daughter stories, but rather the odd eccentric versions of them:
The movie Dreamland takes place in a trailer park in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Here we meet Audrey, a young woman struggling to find her place in the world, choosing to take care of everyone around her rather than fulfill her owns dreams. Her father is an anxiety ridden hermit who refuses to move forward with his life after the death of his wife, Audrey’s mother, Audrey’s best friend Calista suffers from multiple sclerosis and spends her day fantasizing about becoming the next Miss America even though she might not live to see her next birthday, and Mookie, the new boy next door whom Aubrey refuses to acknowledge how much she cares for. But when life starts to unravel because she can no longer hold the threads together, everyone begins to live again and allow Aubrey to do so as well.
In King of California, Miranda, played by Evan Rachel Wood, has been on her own most of her life. Abandoned by her mother and living without her schizophrenic father, who is residing in a mental institution, she dropped out of high school and started working at McDonald’s to support herself. When her father, Charlie, is released, the world she has made for herself is flipped upside down — especially when Charlie starts talking about the lost treasure of Spanish explorer Father Juan Florismarte! With a desk full of treasure hunting books and a metal detector, he comes to believe the treasure is buried underneath the local Costco. Although Miranda is unconvinced of his endeavor, she finds herself joining in on the hunt and discovers some dreams are worth trying to make come true.
The dark and twisted tale Tideland by Mitch Cullen pulls you into the supernatural world of Jeliza-Rose. After the death of her junkie mother, she and her father go in search of his childhood home in rural Texas. They decide to stay despite it being abandoned, but on their first night there her father, Noah, has an overdose and dies, which in turn leaves Jeliza-Rose in the company of her own imagination where squirrels talk and four doll heads are her closest friends. Soon she meets her very interesting neighbors an intellectual disabled young man called Dickens and his older sister Dell who is blind in one eye from a bee sting, who offer her slight companionship. As she folds deeper into a life of her imagination, little solace is enjoyed and makes you wonder if she will ever find home.
Tideland has also been made into a movie by the visionary filmmaker Terry Gilliam, who has also filmed The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Twelve Monkeys. With his amazing eye and unique details, he weaves the story perfectly from book to film.
~posted by Kara P.
Leave a Comment