Courier at the movies – The Glass Castle

This blistering film takes us on an unbelievable ride with one of the most dysfunctional families you will ever see.

This 2005 memoir by Jeannette Walls plunges the moviegoer into an angry tale of deceit, neglect and mind-numbing courage that pounces on you like an angry tiger. The film has left out certain salient parts of the book and pales in comparison thereof. The time-jumping narrative is not well portrayed in the film, and actually does Jeanette a disservice here.

Yes, the technical care, casting and control in the making of the film is not the best I have seen, but it does not detract from this intense tale. It does become a little difficult to connect with Jeanette in her adult years, but you will soon get the hang of it after the first few jumps in the narrative.

From Jeannette’s point of view, we watch her lifelong hunt after the demons in her life as she basically had to raise herself and her three siblings as they live from their suitcases. At a young age, she burned herself while cooking lunch because her mother cared more about her oil painting. Her father led her in forced swimming lessons by throwing her into the water, literally drowning her. Then he attacked the swimming pool manager after the lesson nearly killed her, leading to the family running off into the wilderness to live.

All she ever wanted, was for her abusive father (Woody Harrelson, scorchingly good here) to stop drinking, but she still loyally stitched his wounds and stargazed with him until she became old enough to ask questions. The ups and downs with her father come off strong, and his intentions, even if dangerous, always seemed good in his perspective for his little “mountain goat” (the nickname he gave her). He taught her an important philosophy she unconsciously kept throughout her life: “you learn from living, all else is a damn lie.”

This is a story of unbelievable courageous children who basically raised themselves, went hungry more than often, and had to deal with two parents who should not have had children to begin with. The trash pits they had to share as a family home ably illustrates the drunken fool of a father’s inability to provide food or shelter for them, and the mother (Naomi Watts) was more interested in painting a masterpiece (which never happened). All this while they at times had nothing more to eat than butter, mixed with sugar.

This is a naked, emotional rollercoaster of a ride. Go see it. You may just look at your life a little different after this deluge.
Seven out of ten. (only because it was poorly made)