While the majority of writers dream about instant success and leaving the legacy along the lines of Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, or the financial paradise of J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, a lot will face the bitter pill of professional drawbacks. And if your literary career is dying a slow and unappreciated death, can you use your talents for a bit different craft? Yes, winning literary prizes is glorious, but when your rent is unpaid, your pet is sick, and you have literally no money, how can you truly get by another day? What if entering the path of crime was a temporary fix to your problems? Based on a true story, hilarious, and real - a struggle of a writer who found a peculiar literary vocation. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
We love the lives of the rich, beautiful, and successful. However, there are only a few of those who will have a chance to enjoy luxury lives without limits. The reality is far harsher. Some of us will at some point in our lives lose their jobs, witness the break-up of their marriages, and face the struggle with the system that doesn't respect the old, weak, sick, or in need. How humiliating can be acquiring help from officials, dealing with people's lack of imagination, unwillingness, and indifference? Why can it happen to us all, many of whom are just one salary away from being homeless, hungry, or in debt? Why providing for your children forces you to take up any profession, even one socially condemned? A story of an unusual friendship in need and one man's fight with the British social system: I am Daniel Blake.
You can laugh at the unfairness of the world, but it's no laughing matter. The gap between the rich and the poor widens at the galloping pace of increasing world population. Some have everything: expensive education possibilities, private tutors, career prospects, luxury houses, fashion items, and servants to carry out the most mundane chores. Others have literally nothing with no food to put on the table and nothing to make them survive until the next day. But luck shifts and when one door closes another door opens, so when you get your foot in the door, you can make others enjoy your chance for the privilege. What if one impoverished family managed to deceive the rich and naive one and reap some of their harvests? Bittersweet, funny, and unbelievably good on the most humane level. Parasite.
We have crushes on various people. Some traits, either of the character or appearance we find attractive and others don't fit in our scenario for a happy relationship. But is being overly too romantic good for this hard materialistic world and doesn't it lead to way too many broken hearts? On the other hand, can you consciously resign from love on the grounds of money and family acceptance? Can you rationally weigh the pros and cons of your feeling and give up your own happiness for someone else's benefit? Two completely different women and two equally strong love affairs, Jane Austen's heritage: Sense and Sensibility.
In the man-dominated world, we appreciate the story of the success of those who spread their wings and won a sense of independence. Among the few company owners who boast to be of beautiful sex, there was one woman who changed the fashion and perception of women for years. But is creating a fashion empire devoid of pain and heartbreak? What hides behind the cover of success and is this success a hard path to follow? Is it better to be in a loveless marriage with all privileges or feel loved without any recognition at all? What stands behind every woman's decision and is there a chance for no regrets? A woman's road to financial independence and success. Audrey Tautou in Coco Before Chanel.
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.
Two hundred years have passed and still, the biggest difference between people, a difference deeper than race, religion or nationality, is the financial status. Some have very little, others live the lives of privileges and pleasure, enjoying the services of private doctors, fashion designers, gourmet cooks, and luxury travel. We love the stories of from rags to riches, fables of how a poor and good boy resorting to wit and luck became a millionaire and changed his life for the better. But the reality is less optimistic. There were millions who starved to death, millions who died in political conflicts, and millions who sold everything, including their dignity, for a better life for their children. Despite the passing of time, a story of one who overcame poverty and those who were somehow connected to his renewed life. The fate of the criminals of the circumstances, the cruelty of the hungry, money-making world, the young French paying for the sins of their parents, trying to fight for their own happiness. Poverty-struck France with all its injustices, based on Victor's Hugo novel, Les Misérables.
The world has always been constructed in the way that some have and others have not. Whether we are talking about health care, insurance, cars, houses, and food, there are some who have everything in abundance, and others dream of having just the scraps from the table. A few billionaires' income could support all of us, yet some choose to have more yachts, cars, real estate, while others can put their possessions in a bag and carry it, homeless, wherever they go. A heartwarming story of a father and a child who despite having very little, had something real to offer to one well-equipped career-oriented lady. And something which still rings true, you never know the ways of your fate. Once rich, you could lose everything within a few minutes of the market crash and cost-cutting in your company. Having it all, you can leave it for one real moment of happiness and true love. A nineties' fairy tale, Curly Sue.
It's difficult to achieve something when life from birth places obstacles before you, making it difficult to even stay alive. It's excruciating to run away from pathology which operates as a norm and is the only known reality to a child. Our parents build us in a way that we are not entirely aware of. Whether we have them or not, whether they are perfectionists or extremely neglectful, they leave an impact on our adult lives. Their fears become our targets to overcome, their insecurities push us to have a certain lifestyle, their deficits make us work harder for something we want but failed to have as children. But without them, we would be nothing at all. The Glass Castle. How strong do you have to be to stand such rough upbringing and why running away from it all may not be all it's cracked up to be?
It often surprises me how superficial the idea of success is. You struggle, being poor, to buy the necessities of life, to pay for the basics of your maintenance. Then the luck turns upside down and you're wealthy, having won the blessing of a good job or starting your own business. The business flourishes until you're considered less attractive, until people are bored with your persona, until you're considered less up-to-date. And while you got used to a certain level of life, the luck might change again. Now you have to pay the bills for your restaurant meals, pay off your mortgage or sell everything you have to make ends meet. At times you end up in the street. Homeless. With higher education diploma, with past career and memories of prosperity, you find yourself alone without any shelter. And while we can observe the philosophy of downsizing, of choosing less instead of more, is the life devoid of home and family worth our pity or admiration?
We are always intrigued by people on the side of evil. They carry out what we can (I hope) only fantasize about, what, out of sheer fear of being found out and traced by the police, we never fulfill. The danger of making such stories is that they might prove inspirational for the more maniac-like individuals. Perfume is sophisticated. It comprises the sacred and the profane. It combines the unique variety of colors which make us believe that we feel the scents. A tragic story of a genius who made people mad from desire. A lonely individual in a world of a limitless number of smells. And you almost forget that it's a story of a murderer.
