While you are locked up with your teenager day after day after day after day after day (after day), you can run out of things to occupy your time. Could there be a more perfect solution than family movie night?! But what movies are both entertaining and yet provide an opportunity for you to discuss important issues with your child. I have the perfect list (with tongue placed firmly in cheek)! These movies are just the thing for a boring night when you want to prepare your child for the endless days of isolation and infection that stretch out before you. Here’s the list.
A Quiet Place. Great movie about aliens that will chew your head off if you don’t SHUT UP. The perfect movie to watch with that talkative kid who needs to see there could be consequences for speaking, at all. Then, y’all could put on your own production of the movie. Let’s see, who will play the humans who have to be quiet and who will be the ravenous alien beast who attacks at the slightest sound?
The Road. After society has collapsed, a father and a son are left to wander across a desolate country trying to make it to the coast while avoiding murderers and cannibals. Is your kid complaining about having to isolate (while safe, sound and well fed)? This is an “it could be worse so stop your complaining” movie.
Outbreak. A pandemic strikes. The country is on lock down while they desperately search for a cure. People keep breaking quarantine. It’s like a documentary.
Castaway. Tom Hanks alone on an island for years. For kids, it could be worse; I’m just saying. For parents, couldn’t be better? And brush your teeth!
127 Hours. A lone hiker gets his arm caught under a boulder and has to cut it off with his own pocket knife to survive. Next time they complain, AGAIN, about how bored they are, hand them a pocket knife! (And then get the knife back because who knows what havoc they will wreak with it while bored.)
Rambo. All he wanted was to be left alone but NO. People just had to mess with him. The perfect time to have a conversation with your kid about giving you your personal space. And, if it comes to fending off people in a struggle to survive, there is a lot you can learn from the character.
Five Feet Apart. Two teens have to stay separate so they don’t infect each other and die. This is what true love looks like; staying away from each other.
Home Alone. Another instructive movie about being all by yourself (and needing to fend off home invaders). Although, Kevin didn’t self-distance very well. He was constantly leaving the house.
Silent Running. This is a little gem of a movie where a space station mechanic is alone (after he kills the other crew members) except for 3 cute little robots. Then big government decides to destroy the only remaining plants from earth being cared for on the station). You can get a little crazy being alone all the time. OK. Maybe not such a good movie to show to a teen who is trapped in a house with his fam (i.e., crew).
Touching the Void. Two mountain climbers encounter hardships as one falls in a crevasse. So what does his partner do? Leaves him of course. So the injured man drags himself back to base inch by inch. Might be a good time for a meditation on loyalty and commitment and not leaving your fricken partner (or family member!) to save your own butt.
Moon. An astronaut who is the lone caretaker of a moon base is afraid he is hallucinating when he sees and talks to himself. It turns out “they” have to decide who has to die. OK, maybe this isn’t a good one to watch either while locked in the house with dwindling toilet paper supplies.
Buried. A man wakes up in a coffin with a phone and a lighter. Say no more. How is he going to extricate himself from this hellish situation? You may need some ideas.
All is Lost. Robert Redford tried to one up Tom Hanks’s Castaway. He is adrift in the middle of the ocean while his boat sinks; slowly, inch by inch. He can’t escape. There is no where to go. He just has to sit and wait for sweet, sweet oblivion. Sound familiar?
Containment. A guy wakes up with his apartment sealed and people with hazmat suits attacking fellow residents with only a voice stating over and over “Please remain calm, the situation is under control.” Yeah, right! Like that could ever happen in real life.
Man vs. The host of a survival series heads into a remote forest alone. But, he isn’t alone after all. Why? Because his kids were right under his feet the whole damn time! Wait. That’s not what happened in the movie. A monster was going to eat him alive. Wait. what’s the difference?
Two Years At Sea. After spending time at sea, a man decides he wants to be alone. No children. No partner who is always chipper and happy. Some might call this Heaven. One review of the movie said about it: “little happens nothing is explained.” If that’s not the story of this lockdown then nothing is.
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga. A documentary about Siberian fur trappers who are so isolated they can only be reached by helicopter. Not surprisingly, the community is rife with alcoholism. (How many days on lockdown did it take for YOU to join the Happy People?) At least they got to go out for weeks at a time in the bone-chilling cold.
Alone in the Wilderness In the late 1960’s a man built a tiny cabin in the Alaskan wilderness. This is a documentary about him. He had to make everything himself. Watch this with your kids and then, when they complain about running out of cheerios or how slow the internet is running, hand them a chunk of wood and a knife with the instructions “Don’t come back in the house until you have carved something useful!”
Into Great Silence. Another documentary. This one is about the everyday life of Carthusian monks in France. They never speak. Let’s savor that for a moment. They NEVER SPEAK. It is a shame there are travel restrictions to France.
Gravity. After the space station is destroyed, an astronaut is left alone in space. And you know what? She had to do everything herself while she was up there. No one picked up after her. No one yelled at her to get her chores done. There may be something to the threat of impending death for motivating someone to take care of their responsibilities.
Movies like these can provide material to talk about isolation, loneliness, qualities it takes to survive, sacrifices you should make for others even if it is against your best interest (because it is the right thing to do) and to stop talking all the damn time.
Good luck and keep those masks on!
