The work of Pixar is a natural starting point for this blog because they, more than any other movie studio, can make me cry just about every time. In fact besides a dry spell (get it) in the mid-aughts caused by the, to me, less emotionally affecting Cars and Ratatouille, every Pixar movie I’ve seen has made me tear up at some point or another. Though I’m sure I’ll work through them eventually, for now I’ll start with Brad Bird’s The Incredibles, which brought to a close the initial crying streak of 1995-2004.
As hopefully you are aware, The Incredibles is a family-friendly mash up of The Watchmen and suburban ennui, and much of the movie focuses on Bob, the ex-Super turned bureaucratic stooge, returning to form as the archetypal hero/spy but at the cost of his family life.
Maybe it is because I haven’t had to grapple much with balancing family and career, but I’ve never felt all that connected to Bob’s journey. Sure I feel for the guy, but not in a way that will make me cry. Likewise, I worry for Violet and Dash because I’m naturally inclined to care about both with kids and Sarah Vowell, but their lack of regard for the henchmen they kill always knocks me back a bit. No, I’ve always felt the strongest attachment to Helen, the mother of the Parr family.
Which when actually spending time thinking about her character, I was taken aback by how little of her there is. She isn’t in too many scenes, and half of her screen time is spent listening to Bob narrate his feelings or another character deliver exposition. In many ways she (excluding Jack Jack) is a weakest part of the movie, at least on paper.
What gets me about Helen is that while Bob struggles with distraction, she struggles with her temper. Which is a type of selfishness that I wish the movie spent more time exploring. She has clear ideas about what she expects from situations and other people and gets pretty angry when her expectations are not met. As a hypercritical guy whose job is basically to instruct others, I relate to her struggle not to be a jerk.
The scene where all this comes to a head is when Helen takes her, arguably, first proactive move in the film and borrows a jet to go to Nomanisan Island (which is a joke that gets me every time) and find Bob. Syndrome shooting down the jet that contains Helen and the kids is a classic example of Hitchcockian suspense. That is to say, there is no intellectual side to this scene, no mystery. We know exactly who is shooting the missiles and why. By giving the audience so much information, in fact especially because at first we know more information than Bob, Mirage, and Syndrome (the fact that the kids are aboard), the viewer isn’t distracted from the emotional core of the scene: that Helen must do everything she can save the lives of her children.
The end of the sequence, when Helen expands herself to cover/hug her children connects with every parent who has ever seen this movie. Heck, I just teach kids and I can think back to times I wish I could physically protect them from all that is bad in the world. It is a visceral solution to a visceral problem.
But her solution isn’t what gets me caught up in the moment. It’s Helen’s first idea for how to save the day: having Violet use her force field abilities. Ok, second idea. First she tries to deal with the danger herself both through evasive maneuvers and by communicating over the radio. But pretty quickly after those attempts fail, she’s on to delegating plan b to those around her, and she’s pretty much a jerk about it. She shouts at the self-conscious Violet, interrupting her and progressively raising her voice.
The weird thing is for as mean as Helen is in that scene, I don’t cry because I’m sympathizing with Violet, I’m sympathizing with Helen failing to be nice under pressure.
Which probably isn’t the best moral of the movie, Helen basically bosses around her kids, then loses her temper, and finally does the job herself. But boy do I cry for her struggle every time.
