New Horizons: How Movies Can Teach Us to Start Over
At the dawn of a new year but still staring into the barrel of sustained uncertainty, we find ourselves grappling with a hefty notion: is it possible for us to cling to hope despite the ongoing despair? As we move past what’s being colloquially recognized as the worst year of our lives, we’re left dealing not only with the lingering fear, but the unquestionable fallout of our collective trauma. If you feel like I feel, 2021 probably still seems disturbingly surreal and with our perceptions of time caught in the purgatorial vortex, we can sometimes find difficulty grasping onto the moment and learning how to proceed with refreshed optimism.
As hard as it is to contend with the fact that patience really is the only remedy, how we choose to pass our time can provide temporary ease to keep the lingering fear at bay. While cinema can be used as a helpful tool for distraction, engaging in its nuance can help reframe your perspectives on the situation at hand. Much like a playlist on Spotify, if what you watch is curated with care and intention, moviegoing at home can be a powerful cathartic experience when you’re facing adversity. The question is—where should you start?
When the good news seems sparse, remind yourself: optimism is created, not given. One way to refine your disposition is to immerse yourself in a mindset conducive to one key concept: “fresh starts”. And what better way to explore this notion than to pursue an index of movies whose deeper meanings can actually help you see that light at the end of your tunnel? Beneath all good films are poignant lessons we can stand to learn from—the teachings they advocate can grant enlightenment to those who are receptive to its underlying message. These films are flexible in structure and genre but their transformative properties are evident in the resonating thoughts we’re left with for hours after the credits have rolled. Join me in this exploratory dive into these cinematic lessons on what it means to brave new storms with a hopeful heart.
Lesson 1: Embrace new frontiers with open arms
Everybody Wants Some (2016) - dir. Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater’s spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused is a raucous love letter to the best days of our lives—and the entanglements of being too caught in the moment to notice.
Told from the viewpoint of an enthusiastic college freshman (Blake Jenner) in 1980, he and his new friends discover the joys and complications of your first taste of unsupervised freedom. Everybody Wants Some is a delightful portrait of life’s new phases and the myriad ways in which we navigate them. Using wit, humor, a crackling roster of diverse characters and a groovy retro soundtrack, it buzzes with infectious energy that is sure to achieve a future cult status that might just rival its predecessor.
From Dazed to Before Sunrise, Linklater’s films are an encapsulation of moments that explore human interconnectivity through communication; this movie’s youthful glow is a veiled study of the people we meet and the lessons they teach on approaching life’s exciting new chapters with open-mindedness. The film’s closing remarks leave us with a resounding spark to embrace our unknowable future with an insatiable lust for life.
Lesson 2: Cherish warm memories of the past but learn to push forward when you need to
Up (2009) - dir. Pete Docter
Despite its reputation for being so heart-wrenching it’s borderline unbearable, Pete Docter’s high-flying fable has gained universal praise for its boldness about recontextualizing our most painful truths with wonderment and spectacle.
Following a grumpy old widower (voiced by Ed Asner) fulfilling his beloved wife’s lifelong fantasy of finding forgotten paradise, Up was Pixar’s introduction to animation that refuses to shy away from the harsh realities of our mortal coil. The underlying meditation helps us reason with grief at the counterpoint of honesty and fantasy, so its message has a tangible effect on viewers of all ages.
From Carl and Ellie’s adolescent courtship through the ladder of life’s inevitable milestones, Up crescendos to a dazzling journey into the unknown, with a palpable human element at its core that implores audiences to reflect on their own lives in the process. Through life’s peaks and valleys, Carl’s arc is a portrait of what it means to sift through our dredges with a grateful heart for the memories that sustain us. His acceptance of this universal truth is a poignant reminder: there’s always a Paradise Falls for those brave enough to seek it.
Lesson 3: Channel your demons through expressive creativity
Poetic Justice (1993) - dir. John Singleton
The late John Singleton was a filmmaker who left an immeasurable imprint on cinema; his work, his voice set out to deliver an unflinching vision of the black experience in America with artistic clarity and deep characterization. His sophomore feature Poetic Justice is a searing drama that wasn’t as well received as Boyz N The Hood but also approaches weighty social topics with an empathetic touch.
The film unfolds through the eyes of Justice (Janet Jackson), a young hairdresser. Though she mourns over the senseless murder of her boyfriend, she finds solace in writing poetry. When she’s reluctantly roped into going on a road trip with Lucky (Tupac Shakur), a troublesome postman, they both learn what it means to open up and heal their pain through creativity.
Janet Jackson and Tupac deliver painfully vulnerable performances that anchor the film’s thematic statement on nourishment through expression. Singleton’s body of work is a subtle exploration of the destructive ways in which human beings can choose to interpret suppression; some channel through anger, some through resentment or violence but his films try to remind us that at the end of the day, all we have is one another and the ways in which we connect. Poetic Justice may be overshadowed in the archive of Singleton’s work but its resonating message reminds us that creativity is a gift, and expressing it is a prism through which we examine our pain. And much like a kaleidoscope, it’ll turn the broken pieces into brilliant fractals of shape and color.
Lesson 4: Leave behind that which no longer serves you
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) - dir. Nick Stoller
Who says a movie that so prominently features full-frontal male nudity can’t teach you profound life lessons? This Apatow-produced comedy follows Peter (Jason Segel), a depressed songwriter as he attempts to cure the breakup blues by taking a spontaneous trip to Hawaii, only to find his ex-girlfriend staying there with her new beau.
It may be profane and outlandish but Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a very funny movie that genuinely has something to say on the subject of starting over. Moving on is an exercise of your ability to endure hardship and try again; this film, at its core, is an anthemic celebration of that human resiliency. Sure, not everyone can relate to being broken up with while standing naked in your living room but the same type of pain is felt by anyone who’s ever had to confront some form of life-defining difficulty.
The essence of comedy is to make a caricature out of your most personal shortcomings; without pain, humor doesn’t exist. In that spirit, Peter’s uphill struggle to overcome his breakup and move on to something new is a humorous representation of a realistic concept. By taking himself out of his comfort zone, he begins to gain perspective on the issue and with it, an awareness for the superfluous weight we all tend to carry around with us. By the end of the film we reach a uniquely profound conclusion: know when it’s time to shed the excess and find your joy in life again.
Lesson 5: No one gets through this life alone—lean on loved ones when you need support
Midsommar (2019) - dir. Ari Aster
This deeply twisted fable is an unconventional pick, but its underlying framework is an abstract lesson on how to start fresh. Ari Aster’s sinister folk tale is a hallucinogenic trip into the mind of Dani (Florence Pugh), a trepidatious young woman who’s begrudgingly whisked to a rural Swedish commune for a lavish midsummer festival with detached boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and friends. Bearing witness to the village’s macabre and drug-fueled ceremonies, their sanity dissipates as they quickly begin to realize this festive hellscape isn’t exactly the party they were looking for.
Much like Hereditary, Ari Aster’s follow-up is depraved but enchanting to watch, a true statement of bold indie moviemaking. The film’s shock value amassed buzz and a cult following that took over conversations by storm, but the reason it still resonates with so many people is its sub-narrative commentary on the things that we cling to in times of despair.
What makes Ari Aster such a unique storyteller is his ability to blend intense family drama with unspeakable horror. Because of these dramatic roots, audiences are engrossed in Dani’s plight—a layered character with a complex arc and background; she’s a broken soul in the wake of an unspeakable family tragedy who seeks refuge in a toxic, floundering relationship. As the film unfolds, we follow her down a twisted path that shatters her constitutions but more importantly, teaches her a profound lesson on the bonds worth clutching onto in times of helplessness. These teachings permeate its colorful surface, invading your perspective so vividly that by the end of the movie, you’ll somehow feel a guilty peace with the morbid atrocities happening onscreen. By hook or crook, Midsommar will plunge its way into your brain and interrogate your fundamental understanding of what community means, standing proud as a brilliant example of a film that doesn’t need to be conventionally “happy” to impart a deeper life lesson.
Lesson 6: Life is fleeting, so live it on your terms
The Truman Show (1998) - dir. Peter Weir
Of all the films most frequently mentioned every time a “movies that’ll change your outlook on life” list is assembled online, maybe none are spoken about with such reverential praise as late 90’s fan favorite, The Truman Show. Peter Weir’s cerebral dramedy was a showcase that not only demonstrated Jim Carey’s true range as a performer, but captivated us with its thought-provoking ideas and questioned our understanding of autonomy and free will.
The film follows Truman Burbank, an average joe whose entire life has been closely captured by an endless array of hidden cameras and broadcast as a fabricated reality show to viewers worldwide, though completely unbeknownst to him. When Truman starts questioning the validity of his life’s ostensible narrative, he goes on a quest to disprove the predetermined fate he’s careening toward by any means necessary.
While Carey’s comic magnetism plays a huge part in how closely it still resonates with fans almost a quarter-century later, The Truman Show has remained a permanent fixture in our consciousness because of its metaphorical density. The film proposes a distinctly original take on people as living in a sort of terrarium—an artificial construction where reality is presented as something chosen for us, an entity out of our control. Truman shows us that only through deliberate action can we break through and construct our own free will. This reconfiguration of our worldview is an exploration of starting over, for the simple fact that it helps remind us that life is uncertainty—but uncertainty is a blank canvas. And if reality is, in fact, something we have any agency over, let’s fill that canvas with the colors of a life worth living.