The Lucky Charm of Hollywood
Nicole Holofcener
Dahling,
It is Mother’s Day, and what does Mother’s Day mean to Hollywood?
Um. Um. Well. Hmm. Um….
I am making it mean something! It didn’t mean anything to the director of the play I auditioned for recently, because callbacks were on Mother’s Day and that took me out of the running. (Seriously, buds, there are brunches to consider!)
Years ago, cherub, I would sit in worship services on Sunday, Mother’s Day, and grieve.
I grieved, “Where are all the mother leaders we are supposed to be bowing to? Why are all the spiritual books written by men on their journeys? Where are my wise mother elders who guide me and instruct me and love me and make soup, and our relationship is so nurturing and un-complicated?”
(Those were not my exact words. And also Mother Mary was like, Hey, yo, don’t forget about me.)
Now, years later, I don’t have all this neurosis about Mother’s Day and the way women and mothers are treated in the world—I just have purpose. I have cause. I see it and see it and see it again, and I realize we are all here to invent the new reality where mothers dance and have joy, piece by piece, with little seeds.
Like this one.
Lovely and Amazing (2001), written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, is one of my favorite movies. All of Nicole Holofcener’s movies are favorites for me. I can dig in. I can get comfortable. I can watch over and over again. Ms. Holofcener is the lucky charm of Hollywood, and only the important people know it. (Ms. Wonderful is thereby an important person. Wink wink, and don’t forget it.)
What you get in Nicole Holofcener’s movies are people who are cracked all over the place, and scrambling to find their glue. Only their glue is not in marriage or parenthood or even money. (Damn, if only money were the answer! It is not!) The glue is not in their art, either, because their art makes them even more frustrated about life. (Take Elizabeth, played by Emily Mortimer, as an example; no clothing works, no hairstyle works, no poster works—she is finally cast in a movie but it only makes her feel worse about herself.)
The glue ends up being commiseration. The glue is perspicacity about other people and not themselves. (Don’t you love that word?) The glue is, “Shit, we’re all fucked up and we all suck in some way. Hey, look at that woman’s complexion; do you think she uses a special cream or something?”
And it is beautiful. Gosh darn it, I love it, I love it, I love it a lot.
I love the colors of Nicole Holofcener’s movies. I love the clean glow that penetrates everything.
I love the L.A. lifestyle even though I have my own inner turmoil about L.A. culture. That competitive ethos, that “she said, she said, he said” of things. The focus on money and cars, the nice houses, how easy it all is for rich people which makes it all so unbearable, too. Where is the meaning, where is the purpose, when you don’t have to worry about how to pay rent or buy expensive socks? What does it all mean? What are we here for?
Friendship. Sisterhood. Supporting our mother after her liposuction appointment and making sure the pillows on her bed look real nice.
Yes, the husbands and boyfriends cheat and they just don’t understand. They think we’re annoying and entitled. They’re harsh and sharp. But we have each other. The good ones. And we’re pretty.
You cannot write like Nicole Holofcener unless you have an ear for listening to the way people speak. The characters are fully formed, they have their quirks, and their quirks are what make them lovable. They are frustrating but the viewer never fixates on the frustration, only the amusement. When it comes down to it, these are just nice-ish people trying to figure out their lives—as viewers, we are also nice-ish white people trying to figure out our lives.
Except this movie has the twist of Annie, the 8-year-old black girl, the adopted child to the matriarch of this family, played by Brenda Blethyn. Annie (played by Raven Goodwin) rebelliously gets her hair straightened, struggles with her weight, plays dead in the community pool for attention, and knows she got “lucky” with this family. She loves her older sisters and doesn’t minimize their problems, even though their problems are rich and white. Annie is gentle and asks questions, but also has enough fire and sass to do what she wants when she wants it. Under the surface, she knows that another kind of life was meant for her, if she had been brought up by her biological mother, who suffered from a drug addiction. That would have been quite a different world. When she grows into an adult she is going to have to wrestle with such discordance, but for now, she just puts on her purse and walks down to the McDonald’s when she is hungry, shameless about getting two big meals for her after-dinner snack.
As far as being lucky, luck is in the eye of the beholder. Jane, the matriarch, is the one who feels lucky for Annie in her life.
When Jane is recovering from her liposuction treatment, crushing on the handsome older doctor, he says to her, “Annie is lucky to have you for a mother.”
“She’s not lucky,” Jane says. “She’s entitled. Every child is entitled to a mother.”
And so it is.
Now, last question, reader. What is a mother entitled to?
Do we adequately honor the mothers in our lives? Our culture seems to have an assumption that mothers shall give and give without any expectation. At once, Mothers are goddesses who must be perfect in all things. And also, why are they so messed up and imperfect—crazy, kooky, and weird? Even in therapy, we tend to blame them fast, find their flaws, complain about their insecurities and foibles, rather than sit down and shut up and appreciate that they gave us life and did their best while being stomped on and dwindled a whole bunch.
Perhaps we respect our mothers to the degree that we feel like this world is better off having us in it. A deeper question: For the risks our mothers have taken, the trauma and hardship and pain they have endured to have us and raise us, are our lives even worth it?
Well, Annie’s sure is.
Bisous bisous, kiss your momma for me,
Ms. Wonderful
*Nicole Holofcener has a new movie coming out later in May 2023 called You Hurt My Feelings.