Screenwriter and Director: Logan Marshall-Green
Starring: Ethan Hawke (and these two cute little babies!)
Dear Ethan Hawke,
Is calling my film club the Ms. Wonderful Film Club kind of…arrogant? It’s like saying I am Ms. Wonderful. People who don’t know me might think I am a conceited bitch.
I guess it is not really a film club for the masses. It’s my own little experiment, my own little journey. It is about film and bringing consciousness to the way we watch films and the way films are made. Can something like that become big? It might only be the kind of thing a few witchy ladies talk about in the forest. There is a reason wisdom groups are small. It requires a warrior-approach to life that has nothing to do with carrying guns or blowing anyone up. I suspect the witches in the forest were like Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird—they’re all scary until someone lifts up the veil or the mask and sees warm eyes and a kind smile and a pleasant experience that is entirely natural instead of self-seeking. Like trees.
I am exploring your work because we are in a quagmire in this country and beyond. We are consumed with how many followers people have, and how many views something gets, and we have people who—like Chris Rock says—worship money instead of um, God/Goddess. And we also are seeing toxic masculinity become a terroristic threat to humanity—and many people are choosing that terroristic threat because they think anger and arrogance is superior to compassion and contemplation and quiet moments and birds singing and clean air.
I have been an English literature and writing teacher for more than 20 years. I love literature, and growing up, my head was always in a book. I was not reading any “classics,” back then. I read romance and thriller, mostly. I liked watching the way someone put a sentence together, and a story, and a description. I liked following the way a story progressed. I liked getting out of my 3D reality and into a place I’d rather be. And I began creating those stories myself of human compassion, awakening, renewal, connection. That is just what I’ve always done, whether large swaths of people know my name or not, whether I have 50 followers or 50,000. I know enough in my study of artists—and in sharing the work of artists in many different kinds of classrooms—that what lasts is not necessarily popular in the lifetime of the artist. The artist makes an offering, that’s all. She lets a balloon float into the sky. What makes a mark, and what will resonate with people? We kind of have no idea until we know.
It really bothers me that we are living in a world where a man who admits that he sexually violates women, and uses his money to pay off his indiscretions, is lauded as some kind of hero and has even a chance of securing, once again, the highest office in the free world. And we have men like Harvey Weinstein, who make a religion out of their indiscretions against women, still collecting their money from jail. And we have women speaking up about what they see as abuse and violation, and everyone is so confused because the people we thought were leaders are just a mirage, and we can’t trust that our kids are going to have a better world, and women don’t know who they can trust in workplaces or governments, and some men are afraid to say, “You have nice earrings,” to a woman on an elevator. It’s just tough because the whole fabric is crumbling and we need to learn to communicate better, and we need to go into our hearts and produce the fruits of compassion and unity, not ego. This is a tall order! A Venti triple-shot kind of order! It may take a few days.
I have stories about meeting men who have been in prison and their kindness toward me. And I know, also, that courts can be criminal in what they do to people unfairly. We have history books to point to on that front. This is why I love Adopt a Highway in its quiet way of showing a man who has suffered a deep injustice do something beautiful and wonderful for someone else. I was pulled into Russ Millings’ reality from the beginning. The fragility of him, the sensitivity, the kindness, the fear. No arrogance existed in this man at all.
When people assume something about a person, that person can absorb the negative and toxic energy like a sponge. We are human and susceptible. We can begin to believe what people say, and if we don’t know ourselves well, and unless we root in a Source that is much greater, we can begin to believe the trash and think the trash is the truth. I see this in your embodiment of Russ as he navigates his journey and his moral conundrum of finding this beautiful baby in a dumpster and figuring out what to do. Russ knows how dangerous this world is, how the systems can care more about upholding masks and illusions of order without actually acting in integrity. After all, order and love are not the same thing, are they? Love is what opens your heart. Order is things going in a place. Something can be quite orderly until you wonder about the strangeness of a bar of soap in a junk drawer. That’s not where it belonged, but some hand thought it did.
I watched this film with another mom friend. We both cared for babies and raised them. And we kept telling Russ on the screen what he needed to do, just like the people in the grocery stores told him what he needed to do. We adults are so at the mercy of babies, aren’t we? Our big decisions keep coming down to babies. And sometimes we care so much about the financial aspects and the manner in which we feed a baby, or the clothes she wears, that we forget the importance of love. What could be more important to a child than love? Russ has that, for this child he finds, and he is a true father, even though no drops of his DNA went into the making of the child. This father, Russ, received love from his own parents, and decided to give love to this small foreign child for years, in whatever way he could. He was thinking about her future, and selflessly decided he wanted security and something better for her even if that did not include him. He knows, after 20 years in prison, that a future does exist.
Sigh. It reminds me of Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth, beauty.” There are hard and ugly truths in life, but why not make films and embody characters who know the intersection of beauty and truth, so that we can create a better world? I’m really behind any project like this.
Mr. Hawke, I appreciate what you offer because you are an actor from the heart. Your roles show men exploring, navigating, challenged, and in moral conundrums. They are not perfect. They make mistakes. But we as the viewer can begin to see the person inside the man, the person inside us all, and personhood is the highest goal of art, is it not? Personhood, regardless of age, sex, skin color, religion. We are all people.
Hi, person.
Hi. Hi. Hi!
Bravo to your place in this film, and bravo to the writer and director Logan Marshall-Green. Like Paul Schrader said, a movie is supposed to vibrate with you, and this one does, for me. I still want to hold that beautiful little girl.
I don’t mind a patriarchy as long as it’s a good father running the show. It probably goes without saying that a good father knows the value of a mother, too. One strength almost always reflects the other, and appreciates differences in approach, opinion, and appearance. That’s the glory of being a human being.
Cheers,
Ms. Wonderful
*Adopt a Highway is streaming on Hulu and available for purchase through other services.
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Hamlet is next week. Ah, Christ.