IFP-MN and The Film Society brought filmmaker Doug Block to St Anthony last Friday for a screening of his latest work The Kids Grow Up. The film is a story about parenthood, following Doug’s own struggles to accept his daughter Lucy's eventual departure for college. The story starts at the beginning of Lucy's senior year of high school, and, through old home movies and interviews, we witness the father-daughter bond first hand.
Not surprisingly, the final product becomes something other than what the director initially intended. Instead of a loving portrait of family bonds, the movie becomes a critical look at attachment in the era of the helicopter parent. This transformation in story is in the audience's best interest; it keeps the movie from being narcissistic, or at least distractingly so. Lucy becomes less of a main character, and more of a figure through which Doug grapples with aging and unresolved issues with his father.
During the Q&A that followed the film, it seemed unclear if Doug fully understood this transformation, or, more specifically, understood the extent to which his presence took center stage in the movie. Doug casually lamented his daughter’s unwillingness to participate in similar discussions and Q&A sessions; he wanted the star present to field questions of character development and motivation. This was a little startling. He appeared set on viewing himself as filmmaker first, instead of the figure best positioned to answer the types of questions asked of a film's main character.
To be sure, the number of filmmakers in the audience (the screening was part of a monthly documentarian gathering) helped steer the discussion toward technical and production questions. But the most telling part about how Doug viewed his role in the film was in the bonus screening of a DVD extra. Shortly after completing the film, Doug filmed his wife and daughter's reaction to it. Their thoughts were in keeping with what they had shared throughout the course of the movie: they were critical and suspicious of his desire to show first and foremost the father-daughter connection. In spite of this, he still felt the need to get more story from his supporting cast. For both his family and the audience, it becomes clear by the film's end that the real emotional draw and the force driving the narrative comes from the man behind the camera.
This movie is a fairly selfish one, but it contains an appeal in how easily relatable it is, if not for the intriguing questions posed about the often complicated and messy documentary process. Doug's unwitting turn as the film’s main character only adds to its charm. This combination of naivete and unpretentiousness demand more feeling than thought from its audience (and its director, to an extent), which in no way is meant to take anything away from its power as a moving and intimate portrait of a father, son and husband.
