Some unconventional movies exploring the idea of conventional adult relationships with children

The conventional adult relationships with children is complicated to understand. Here we are a few films that tried to explore this.

Generational gaps are complicated and when it comes to strict families, it is also overwhelming. We become naturally polite, well behaved and submissive which can be a byproduct of all that strict and rigid upbringing, but do we like it? Adult relationships with children have become authoritative and such parenting style is a culture that has always been here and has evolved with time from toxic to a different kind of toxic. We have seen it all over the internet, from memes to movies, such parental love is often confused with abuse for very obvious reasons. In the quest of making your child too good to be true, parents often go overboard and that’s where the problem is. It doesn’t imply that such families don’t have love but it has a far wider gap in terms of communication and understanding. 

Over time art and cinema has tried to explore this idea of such love and how both sides are needed to understand each other’s perspective and sometimes that can be the most complicated thing to do.

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Here are some movies that explored these narratives.

Taare Zameen Par –

Through the perception of an eight year old, Ishaan Awasthi the film comments on the contemporary world where heavy parental expectations and academic load has led to the steady rise of disdain and dysfunctional lifestyle in Indian families. The protagonist in the movie suffers from dyslexia and is always lost in a hyper imaginative world of colours and fantasies. His parents just think he is not paying attention to his studies and send him to a boarding school. His story starts to unfold when an art teacher in his new school finds out a pattern in his behaviour and provides him with the support and care he needs.

Silenced – 

The theme of the movie comments on people’s ability to remain silent at a time when their immediate action is required. Silenced tells us a disturbing story of students at a deaf school who endured physical and mental abuse from their teachers.

Teachers can openly physically abuse the kids and call it a punishment for not being disciplined. It’s often the case that parents get to hear from teachers about the performance of their children. But do we ever ask our children what they think about their teachers? Because society is intrinsically engulfed with the belief that if an adult is saying something, it’s more believable and valid and that’s how a lot of cases of child abuse go unnoticed.

Hindi Medium – 

The film explores the crazy side of Indian parents and they can go to any extent for their children. In the movie, these parents try everything to get their child admission in a fancy school with a top notch curriculum while paying no regard to the needs of the child. As every other parent, they want to give their child everything that they didn’t have but they do it in a way that puts an immense pressure on children to do better.

Turning Red – 

A really heartwarming film about mother daughter relationship with the main conflict here being the amount of emotions that women need to suppress to be accepted. The moral here is that being able to fit in your family’s expectations doesn’t have to come with a compromise with your own happiness.

Karwaan – 

The protagonist, Avinash is a repressed guy who wanted to be a photographer but now works in a software firm and why? Because his father forced him to pursue this. He is clearly having a bad time at his workplace. His relationship with his father has made him lose all his sense of identity at work. He goes on a journey of self enlightenment throughout this movie.

Encanto – 

The Disney animated film revolves around the story of Mirabell, a young girl who is finding herself excluded from the family because she has no powers like everybody else. While she longs for love and approval of her family, she constantly ruins things in this quest. Later, her family realised that it is love that keeps the magic together and in the desperation of keeping our magical abilities how they ignored the things that mattered more than anything else and that is family and love.

Coco –

Not gonna lie, the film beautifully portrays Mexican culture and a perfect representation of love bonding between Latina families. How the protagonist, Miguel is bonded with his family is one of the most important themes of the film. The film explores the idea that your family may not always agree with you but the bond always finds a way to outweigh the disagreement.

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