The story is about a man and his wife and daughter, each of whom go through their own personal awakening throughout the course of the movie. The part that moved me the most about this film was the story of the man's daughter, played by Thora Birch. At the beginning of the story, she is just another teenager with low self esteem and a best friend who really is not a good friend at all. Then she meets the new next-door neighbor, a strange boy named Ricky Fitts played by Wes Bentley. The way this guy views the world is truly remarkable. He films everything. He doesn't see the world through his camera, he just captures it like pieces of his own memory. The things he films are things he finds beautiful even though most ordinary people would think nothing of them. Most notably is his film of a plastic bag floating in the wind. He shows this film to Thora Birch's character and says the famous line "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it. Life my whole heart is going to cave in".
I think this is a great lesson to take into consideration both in life and in film. In life, it is the idea to never take for granted the beauty that is around you and to try to find the beauty in everyday life. It is impossible to be negative or unhappy when you look at the world like this. For film, the lesson can be used by looking for a great, artistic shot in everyday life and in the places you wouldn't expect to find beauty. As I learned from this film and from my own experiences, some of the most beautiful occurrences in history were never recorded because no one stopped to truly appreciate their beauty. I would love to incorporate this into my life and my filmmaking in the future.
