A lot went downhill in 2021 and the year is not even halfway yet – the terrible continuity of 2020! Lockdowns, lockdowns again, political upheaval, mass tension and so much more. All of us need an escape route sometimes to serve as a reminder that it is not the end of the world and there is a lot to the story irrespective how it comes ahead as for now. So, what better than wonderful movies to give us all smiles and hope? Because life pulls itself into a full circle eventually - the same beginning and the same end for everyone.
Here are 5 movies to remind you that it will be all ok in the end. And if it is not ok, it is not the end yet!
Intern
Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is a retired 70-year-old widower. He found retirement to be no fun at all. He wanted to do something fruitful. By chance, he comes across FIT, an online fashion site hiring senior interns and he decides to seize this opportunity. At FIT he interns under Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), the founder herself. Even though initially Jules was slightly uncomfortable with this arrangement – millennials and seniors working together, but it turned out to be not only professionally helpful to her, but she also developed a lifelong relationship of friendship and reliability with Ben. He started as her intern, but ended up being her advisor, emotional board and best friend. No matter at what stage of life you are – starting a new internship or a new job, this movie will surely give you hope. Also remember, experience never gets old!
Little Miss Sunshine
Young Olive (Abigail Breslin) has only one goal – to be a beauty queen. Her father Richard (Greg Kinnear) wants to be massively successful in any way possible because he has time and again failed his way to become a motivational speaker. Her mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) has one motto – family above everything else. Olive’s grandfather (Alan Arkin) has been kicked out of a retirement home for smoking heroine and now he is working on her dance routine. Her teenage brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) is reading Nietzsche and has vowed silence until he gets into flying school. And her uncle committed suicide due to heartbreak. Sheryl is having a very hard time holding all of this together and then to fix things up, this functional family decides to go on a road trip to California so that Olive could enter the Little Miss Sunshine Contest. Their sanity is tested to the maximum, but it brings them closer and makes us viewers realise that family always comes first no matter how dysfunctional the brood becomes at times.
Groundhog Day
Phil (Bill Murray) is a weatherman, and he hates his job, more specifically the monotony of it. Every year on 2nd February he goes to Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover the Groundhog Day festival. But this time, something unusual happens. He finds himself stuck on 2nd February repeatedly. Eventually he realizes that he is free to do anything from one 2nd February to another, but he will always start again from the same today, unless he flips the script. His stuck-like-a-broken-record situation teaches him a valuable lesson – to enjoy small, wonderful things life brings to you. Because what if you got stuck in a similar situation and nothing would matter anymore? It is all the same and yet very different. Life, in the end, draws itself into a full circle – the same beginning and the same end for everyone. It is better to live your life than sulk on petty issues.
Godmothered
Eleanor (Jillian Bell) is a very ambitious fairy godmother trainee in The Motherland. When Motherland’s headmistress Moira (Jane Curtin) decides to shut it down because no humans are asking for help anymore, Eleanor is determined to do something about this situation because she cannot in any situation become a tooth fairy. She decides to go search for any pleading letters in the library and to her surprise she founds one – written by a Mackenzie (Isla Fisher) from Boston. Eleanor enthusiastically moves to the other side only to find out that now Mackenzie is a mom of two daughters, unhappy with her job and life, after the death of her husband. She embarks on a wonky – wholesome journey to help Mackenzie find love again and unite the family as they were before – full of love and happiness. Magic is always there; you must believe in it to see it.
Life of the Party
Dee’s (Melissa McCarthy) husband decides to divorce her in their daughter’s Maddie Miles (Molly Gordon) college campus after seeing her off. It was the same college where Dee went to but dropped – out to marry her now ex – husband. All her life, family was her centre, and now with Maddie off to college and her husband involved with their real estate agent, she decides to turn her life around. She goes back to school (where she was a student once and now her daughter is) to finish her Archaeology degree. Maddie initially reluctant to see her mom on campus, comes to realize how cool her mom is! Dee becomes a foster mother and mutual best friend to the entire sorority. With the help of her former classmate, now her professor of Archaeology, she overcomes her social anxiety and inferiority complex. To her surprise, everybody loves her on campus, and as Karma would have it, the woman who her husband is in an affair with – her son falls in love with Dee and wants to marry her. With boys crushing on her and support of her newfound friends, she ultimately gets that academic bag and graduates with her daughter. It is never too late to turn your life around for better, to finish something unfinished, to begin again.
