When it comes to female driven movies, be it romantic comedies or character-driven dramas, there’s often a cliched formula we’ve come to expect. The girl will get the guy, the guy will get the girl. The main character wins. We don’t know how they will get to that end – and that is why we watch – we just know that they will get there.
The first movie I saw that deviated from that norm was My Best Friend’s Wedding (one of my favorites by the way). In it you have a single girl in her late 20s, unlucky in love, so when she hears from her male best friend that he wants her to come out to Chicago for something, she naturally assumes that perhaps he has been unlucky in love too, and wants to shoot his shot with her. Instead, when she gets to Chicago he announces his engagement to an early 20-something and he wants her to be the best woman.
As the movie goes on, we see the main character, played by Julia Roberts, unsuccessfully try to get her best friend to fall in love with her instead of his fiancé. To marry her instead of his fiancé. I must admit, as wrong as this is if it were to happen in real life, the whole time I was watching I was routing for Julia Roberts, was certain that ultimately she would get the guy, but she didn’t.
My favorite line from that movie was the one where her other friend said to her – and I’m paraphrasing, “he’s chasing her, you’re chasing him, who’s chasing you?” The answer, of course, to that question was no one.
I actually cried in the theatre at the end of that movie. Like I didn’t go to a romantic comedy to see the girl not get the guy. But as disappointed as I was, I still thought they wrapped up the story beautifully.
I said all that to say, I saw elements of that in the Apple+ movie Flora and Son. There were actually a couple of scenes that didn’t go the way I and others watching expected, but my favorite was the scene where the main character, Flora, was in the park with her best friend.
Flora a single mom who lives in Dublin, Ireland, had been taking guitar lessons online from an instructor in LA who she was beginning to fall in love with. Tired of the distance between them, she decides that she’s going to fly to LA to see him. The only problem is, she has nobody to take care of her troubled teenaged son. His deadbeat dad wouldn’t do it, so she asks her best friend if she would take her son for a month while she visits her potential boo.
This is where I expected the friend to say yes. Afterall, the friend was supportive of their relationship going beyond student and teacher to maybe something more. But when the cost to help get that going was taking in her friend’s son for a month she flatly said no.
Flora couldn’t believe it and went on a little rant about how she deserves look and she works hard to take care of her son, and on and on and on. Basically she was saying she deserves to be loved. At that point I thought, okay now the friend’s going to give in, because how can you turn down helping a single mom who had her kid young who’s just looking for love? But I loved the friends come back that Flora was a parent, and taking care of their kids is what parents are supposed to do. It was like she was saying you don’t get a prize for taking care of a kid you chose to have. What’s more the friend was a parent to. Flora’s guilt trip didn’t work.
I loved that scene so much because normally in the movies we would see a friend be that ride or die chick who would drop everything to help out a friend. It’s like they have no life of their own, their sole purpose in life is to support the main character in whatever endeavors they take on, but we didn’t see that here. This friend put herself first and reminded Flora that her son was her responsibility not someone else’s.
Overall, I thought it was a good lesson in setting boundaries, and not letting someone else force you into doing something that they want you to do if you don’t want to do it. Not letting someone guilt-trip you when you say no. And being okay with the fact the you’re doing something different than what’s expected of you, maybe even what most people would do.
What’s great about Flora’s friend turning her down, is that ultimately, it worked out best for Flora and her son.
I just loved the lesson that the no that you say to someone else to protect your peace, just might end up working out well for them too.
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