One day, you're young and innocent, and all those married forty-year-olds stare at you weighing their thoughts whether to leave their wife and children for you and pursue their desires. And after a wink, the situation is reversed. You are the one who is abandoned for someone younger, prettier, more successful, or (and this is a slap in the face) completely different. You've been there through ups and downs, poverty, insecurities, and crisis, to realize that men run away from the difficult and problematic into the arms of easy and uncomplicated. And much without your control, you are typecast to be the leftover first wife who clings on the last frail remains of beauty and self-confidence. But you can get up on your feet and prevail! And taste the sweet flavor of revenge. Three women against their ex-husbands and an inspiration for many spouses, who treated unfairly, want to get back on their track. The First Wives Club.
It's funny how as teenagers we dream about our ideal future and as young adults, we tend to plan our lives, marriages, children, careers, but these dreams and plans turn up to have little to do with reality. But can you really plan these things? When all your friends are dating guys their own age can you expect to fall in love with a much older man? Can you dream about being someone's stepmother? Do you picture yourself as a second or third wife? Do you take into account that fairy tales happen usually only in fairy tales and the prince is just a regular guy with a lot of kingdom-related problems and a wandering eye for ladies of the court? What if you (realistically assessing your personal life) decided on single motherhood, but life got in a way? And if you aren't happy with the result, can you really plan a way out? Maggie's Plan.
It's great when you're talented and your efforts are appreciated by your family members and the support has been given to you from early childhood. You then thank your parents when receiving another award and thrive supporting them in return. But when you're extremely talented and there is no support, not even acceptance among the members of your closest family, the talent and success itself are not enough to make you happy. How one world-famous singer had to face his demons, addictions and find a way to personal happiness? Early years of Elton John, Rocketman.
We all are aware of it now. More relationships break up than last until the time when our wrinkled bodies and grey hair announce the arrival of old age. But once you have been in a relationship for some time it's not that easy to separate, even though you definitely grew apart. And if there are children that connect both of you it seems to be a never-ending battle with coordination, logistics, compromises, and lawyers. How does it look like to get a divorce? Why is it one of the most traumatizing experiences of modern life? How humiliated can you be and how unscrupulous you can get to achieve your goals? And finally, weren't divorces created to get us out of the hell of marriage and is there a chance for a happy ending? Marriage Story.
In the beginning, everybody has good intentions, high hopes for the future, the certainty of success. But some of us fail in the middle of the way, with a smaller or bigger bang. Some of us don't have to fail, there are others who do this for us, making our marriages break up, our whole lives turn upside down, and the sense of safety shattered completely. There is nothing extraordinary in falling down and one has to get up sooner or later. But maybe in the greatest downfalls, there is light at the end of the tunnel and there is luck in every misfortune. How two women decided to get the advantage of the beauty of the world and build their lives from scratch? Why every end is a new beginning and it's definitely worth getting back on your feet and finding meaning in new and unexplored? Two mood boosters and travel bug injections: Eat Pray Love and Under the Tuscan Sun.
There are few things you cannot buy, among them youth, love, and talent. The last one is rare, it happens once in hundreds of thousands. You cannot learn it, attend courses of creativity, singing classes, painting workshops. You can delude yourself that you will surpass your masters, but only those who have it have a chance for a career. The world, however, is paved with bad intentions and people borrow what does not belong to them. What if the person whom you trusted the most happened to use your talent to their advantage? Is it easy to break the circle of lies and find your own voice? Why is it so difficult for a sensitive soul to stand by her art and why so many obedient wives are easily deceived? Based on facts, a story about a marriage. Big Eyes.
The greatest decisions in our lives are made when we lose all sense of security. When the monsters that we are so deeply afraid of come into fruition from gossips overheard and other people's calamities, and happen to us, we lose balance and hope. We can give up, swimming in the pool of misery. But occasionally, having nothing else to keep us is in the cage of blissful idleness, we are ready to spread our wings and start anew.
Is being fired from a seemingly profitable job that made you run for years the end of the world? Is discovering that your long-lasting marriage is an ultimate fail and a lie the worst tragedy that could happen to a mature woman with a grown-up kid? Should we devote our lives to people and institutions who don't seem to devote themselves to us? Is it ever too late for love, friendship, passion, and education? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It can be the greatest drink of your life, indeed. Larry Crowne and Life of the Party, two perspectives on how to back to square one.
Some great stories are based on facts, others occupy our minds to the extent of making us believe, trust and fall in love with the characters. At times novels and films are our greatest inspiration and a trigger that makes us act and change our ways. Some books have the power to influence and turn our mindset upside down. But there are also stories which dwell on condemnable acts such as murder. If they are dangerously close to reality you tend to be suspicious. Is the talent for writing a cover for another sort of fascination? How to tell whether a book is actually a testimony of a real crime? Based on a real event and real murder which was turned into fiction. Amok.
The order of things is simple, we are born, occasionally to give birth to others. This order, however, doesn't respect individual cases, the gaps of maturity, the relationships we are in or out and giggles of fate. It might happen that your own mother is as immature as a spoilt teenager and requires your constant attention. It could be that this reckless parent gets pregnant just as soon as you start to grow your own family. In times when the age of the pregnancy is not really certain, exposing us to teenage mums and late mothers, it's fun to see two generations striving for the same: parenthood. For mothers and daughters, to appreciate the fleeting moments when we can still be together and share experiences. Enjoy.
Open the photo album with old pictures from your childhood. Look at your chocolate-smeared face, your awkward glance or beaming smile. Look through your teenage years. Pass kindergarten and primary school. Then cover your teenage years. See how your parents have changed, how time didn't wait for anyone to catch up or save the last glimpses of youth and beauty. See how from the bubbling infant you shifted into a grown person and how much effort it took, how much time, space.
We discovered camera to catch moments and preserve memories in time, we created movies to make our legends and stories infinite, to spread the adaptation of the written word, to close happiness and pain in the jar of indestructible. Some pushed this possibility to another level. Imagine a film which leads you through the whole process of upbringing, allows you to see children grow, people age and change, circumstances shift, political systems and pop-culture obsessions turn around and take over. Imagine that it can be seen just like an old photo album, picture by picture, years after years. Boyhood. Maybe it's also your life preserved within the frames of a film. Enjoy.
There's something true in the fact that men come, disturb the peace and leave, and women are the ones to clean the mess. From every side of the spectrum, despite the origin, financial status, and race. If you are a woman, at any time you can be abandoned to keep the world on your shoulders and swipe the dust after the disorder of pain. Two women during a difficult political time, one a servant, the other an employer and mother of four. Two personal dramas, old as time, for all of us, understood and empathically cried over. Why women are the stronger sex? Why for some truths you don't need explanation, color or words? Universal, true, and a tribute to a woman. ROMA.
You can fall down in the deepest holes of your personal and professional history. You can hit rock bottom at any age, regardless of your previous victories and successes. Falling from the top hurts the most but losing any job and breaking any relationship is equally degrading and depressing. We live in a world when it's equally easy to become a millionaire and a bankrupt, from rags to riches has the same application as from hero to zero, as the lottery of luck is rarely fair. But once reaching the bottom, will you let the depression hit you and give in? Or will you fight for your place in the world and make use of your chances? An inspirational true story of how hard work and motivation can save the hopeless who seem to have lost on the American dream. The Pursuit of Happiness.
There
are three stepping stones in your professional life. One is at the
beginning of your career (full of high hopes and 'I want to prove
everybody wrong' drive), the second somewhere in the middle when you are
finally at ease with your duties and your profession blends with your
identity; and the final one, when you don't have to work anymore and
come to the conclusion that retirement might not be a solution at all.
The omnipresent question of work-life balance finally rings true. Can
you be successful in your career not sacrificing your personal life? Is
your career and morale of what you do really worth selling your soul to
the devil and resigning from personal values and aspirations? Is a
relationship worth giving up on your dreams and ambitions, being fragile
as it is in the world of frustrations, one-night-stands, and
infidelity? Difficult questions at any point in your career, proving
that you rarely can kill two birds with one stone and you always have to
choose between and deal with the consequences of these choices. Three
films depicting the reality of contemporary lifestyle, career ladder ups and downs, and
hopes for personal success, which is not for everyone. Lots of food for
thought, enjoy.
It's mean to spoil the expensive wedding cake, ignore the beautiful and carefully chosen wedding dress, and disregard invited family and friends. But marriage is more than one-day ceremony. It's supposed to last years and very often it ends in the middle of the way, leaving at least one spouse heartbroken. The hell of divorce usually touches upon more than parents. If there are children, there are decisions to be made, legal arrangements to agree on, and sides to compare. Who is a better-suited parent? Why balancing family and career is so hard for both sexes, it is almost impossible? Why it is mothers who usually win the custody of the child? How to get back on one's feet once the fairy tale of love is over? Realistic and practical for everybody, regardless of the price of the dress. Kramer vs. Kramer.
Very rarely the cinema has the courage to talk about a topic which is hidden behind the walls of social institutions, which is mentioned only when it comes to rationalizing abortion, which is shared between parents in the lonely lifetime of struggle and family support or total ignorance and fight with the world. Down syndrome. In the highly opinionated world of those who made this and that decision, we rarely focus on those who are already around us, and even though different, need to fit in the world and its norms. What if a man who has his personal struggles met a man who had a whole world of different struggles? What if two lonely people found each other in the hostile world of ignorance, hatred, family relations and heartbreak? A gem from the previous century, still adequate and true. The Eighth Day.
We rarely talk about it. You're more likely to talk about gastric problems than boast about your mental breakdown, visits to the psychiatrist, inability to work or build your personal life from scratch after losing someone you love. Life is unpredictable. Major shifts and changes make you mature and develop, but they often take away the fuel of your life motivation. You become an outcast among your family members, workmates, and friends. Your work-life balance is stretched and you cannot cope, your personal life is in pieces, your behavior is irrational and you are on drugs which numb you and blur your senses. Can you find the light at the end of the tunnel after a major breakdown, is there a chance for love and new beginnings when all hope has been lost? Uplifting. Silver Linings Playbook. Enjoy.
A small percentage of women focused on their careers, giving up families for a higher aim to produce something for humanity. They lived for the audience. They blossomed with the talent that was given to them, by hard work and killing schedule, achieving perfection and eternal fame. They also led lives full of pain, disappointing loves, and downs of not fulfilling some of the life roles that, for them, women, were an option. One of these women was Maria Callas, a legend who succeeded and also wanted to achieve life's happiness. An unforgettable voice and a life devoted to music. Maria by Callas.
Have you noticed a crowd of people queuing in the supermarket, have you been stuck in a traffic or have you taken part in the crowd fight when they finally opened the shop during high sales season? Have you by any chance noticed that there are more of us, as a matter of fact, more than there had ever been, while the Earth seems to be just as small as it used to be? How to solve the problem of overpopulation, the lack of resources, the society's debt and an increasing feeling of being eaten by the threat of global warming? Is changing our size the solution to all the above? Or is human nature prone to inequality, racism, discrimination, and exploitation no matter what size we are? A modern tale of Gulliver's Travels and some really funny highlights of small people in a big big world. Downsizing.
You'd think that in the case of kidnapping your beloved ones will be there for you, they will turn the world upside down to pay the ransom, devote their last penny, liquidate their savings, beg for loans just to get back your precious body from the hands of unscrupulous criminals. In reality, however, your comeback might be less than awaited and the situation can open your eyes widely and show you who really cares and who doesn't give a shit. A story of an unwanted wife and a couple of kidnappers who became a case of tongue-in-cheek Stockholm syndrome. Ruthless People.
Can you put together the whole story from the bits and pieces of information that you are given to observe? Can you solve the mystery of a missing woman even though you can barely trust your own senses? Can you truly believe the ones you love or do you love the ideal of them sitting undisturbed in your head, sometimes so far away from the reality? And, can three so different women, with three different motherhood experiences, fall victim to one sinful mind of a man? An interesting outtake on women in general and one mystery to solve. The Girl on the Train.