2013 August Happiness Challenge -- Day 4

Going to the movies. I love everything about seeing a film on the big screen, and yet this summer, I've only been once before. Part of it is that my weekend afternoons have been so full -- with friends, with trips to the salon or the dentist, most of all, with Reynaldo at the vet. Part of it is that there haven't been any big blockbusters I've wanted to see. So many (Superman, Iron Man 3, The Lone Ranger) seemed aimed at teenaged boys.

That all changed this afternoon. I got my most pressing chores (laundry and grocery shopping) done early and there's been a Sundance hit at my local theater, just waiting for me.

The Way, Way Back is so charming! It's about a 14-year-old boy spending a troubled summer with his mother, her new boyfriend and that man's daughter at a lake house called The Riptide. He reminds me of me at that age (except I was a girl and the cabin was called Smokey Pines). The grownups all behave badly ("It's like spring break for parents") and there's plenty of tension inside the newly pasted together "family." Fortunately for our hero, he finds a surrogate family at Water Wizz, the rather rundown water park that's more popular with townies than the resort crowd. My favorite character was Owen, played by Sam Rockwell. He's very reminiscent of Bill Murray in Meatballs, but that's OK, but I ended up a little in love with Bill Murray in Meatballs, too. I wonder how different I'd be if instead of feeling like a hostage at Smokey Pines every summer, I had a "friend who drives" like Owen to look forward to.