Anywhere But Here (1999)

Whole Less than Sum of Stars
Part of my wife's birthday celebration involved watching old "bad" movies on DVD. We bought this one in WalMart for less than $6. It was my favorite of the two as I've always liked Susan Sarandon, and have adopted Natalie Portman as a new favorite after seeing Garden State. The two play a typical mismatched mother-daughter pair--Susan ostentatious and Natalie reserved, as they live and learn in California after Susan decides that their small-town life in Michigan just won't be enough. Both actresses do a nice job, but the story's a little too pat for this to be a good movie.

Single mothers & their daughters - "The intelligent girls are inside"
This is a movie about the competitive & conflicting relationships of mothers and daughters, and their rough journey to learn how to better communicate and understand each other. Ann, played by Natalie Portman, is the daughter of Adele, played by Susan Sarandon. Adele is domineering, excessively well-intentioned, and charismatic to a fault, believing often in appearances over substance.

Ann hates the level of invasive direction that she receives from her mother. She says to a police officer who is giving her mother a ticket: "You don't even understand. I'm going to leave her one of these days."
Officer: "I'm sure you will. But not today."
Ann: "Why not today?"
Officer: "Well you should leave her when you're calm. When you're rational. You leave her when you're ready not to come back. You understand?"

The same officer plays a pivotal role, once early in the film, and once near the end. The timing of his appearances in the screenplay are not incidental. The officer is ultimately setting up a social test for the daughter to consider, a test he hopes will deter the daughter from leaving unwarrantedly and not before she exhausts every option she can discover. And he speaks with conviction and earnest, probably because he has personally seen what harm can come from people leaving each other or talking to each other when they are not calm or rational.

Sometimes when I hear daughters complaining about the faults of their mothers, I think, "That is very bad. But it's probably not as bad as what your mother had to endure with her mother." We live in a "story rich" world, where we are exposed to thousands of novels, TV, and movies that can give us relationship examples of how to better relate with each other. Our parent's parent's generation had far less social education and diverse social modeling to examine and compare. They had few parenting guides, no internet, and few social examples beyond their own family.

Adele discovers that Ann wants to live on the other side of the country. Ann comes home to find her mother has opened her mail and says, "You opened it?" Adele replies, "Well, how else am I going to know how you're planning your life? I mean after all I'm only your mother. Why would you confide in me? Thank you very much. Go ahead, open it. I'm sure you'll be very happy. PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND? Could you have gotten any farther away from me?"

Adele is admittedly selfish, irresponsible, and "the lights go out sometimes." And in the final scene with the officer, she says, "Did she tell you any of the good things that I did? Because I did a lot of good things. She's always had a warm home, food and clothing. And I got her into the Beverly Hills school system. Did she tell you that? You know, she could have been an actress, but instead she's going away to college. Doesn't she know that I would do anything for her? I mean, I love her. She is the reason that I was born. Doesn't she understand that I would do anything for her?" The officer replies, "Then, you know what to do." And Adele does IT. She sells her prized car that brought them to LA and facilitates Ann going away from her and to the other side of the country, so Ann can pursue her own, separate dreams. Adele lets go. Adele doesn't lose her level of love for her daughter. She doesn't diminish her level of attachment to her daughter. But she let's go.

The officer can see the conflicts of the mother & daughter and he tries to lead by example. He starts by exampling forgiveness. "I'll tell you what. This is what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to let you go . . . Watch the signs PLEASE." This is a beautiful movie and I recommend it to any person who wants to improve fractured relations with family members.

Mother and Daughter re-define their relationship as they grow
Susan Sarandon is a perfect choice for this quirky, yet very human portrayal of a single-mom who lives in her own theatrical reality. Her daughter is the more mature of the two, played by a very green yet forceful Natlie Portman, and she has the unfortunate task of trying to find her own identity while keeping the pieces of her mother intact while they pursue her mother's quest for a life of glamour-even if said glamour is not exactly the usual definition of the word. This movie is all about self-exploration and being able to find yourself without losing the relationships already present in your life.