Earlier this week I saw Lars and the Real Girl and if I can convince even one person to see it, I’ll feel like I’ve added a glimmer to the general light in the universe. It’s a beautiful, fine movie. I laughed out loud, I cried, I loved every single character, and when it was done I felt terrific.
And you know why? Because it was 106 minutes of people being kind to each other. A community of folks confronting difference in one of their own and responding with compassion and kindness. And that is all that happened. Someone was frightened; people were kind; and it helped. I kept waiting for the cruelty that I knew was coming because that’s what happens when wacky people make themselves vulnerable, right? But it never happened.
Isn’t that extraordinary? A movie so confident in the power and wonder of human kindness that the kindness is all we need to see. Without a trace of anything sentimental or silly. It wasn’t a fairy tale — it was a simple story of the extraordinary kindness that people are capable of in the smallest acts. It was about how we really all do make a difference to each other. And for my money, there’s more power and human truth in this movie than in all the hip ironic let’s-plumb-the-depths bullshit I’ve seen or read in the last ten years.
I’m not linking to the trailer because it spoils some of the nicest moments. Just rent the movie and watch it.
And here’s a more immediate kindness fix in the meantime (gakked from my friend Dave — you rock for making me aware of this, bro.)
I hope this story makes you feel as good as it did me. Because it’s true that the simplest kindness can change a mind or a life. And all we have to do is see past what’s awkward or scary or inconvenient or icky about someone else, to put being human above being different from me. And that matters so much.
It’s a human thing to use our differences to demonize — dehumanize — each other. It’s a human thing to let our fear make us indifferent or cruel. But it is also a human thing to be kind, to be joyful, to find love and beauty and hope where we can…. and so I find joy and beauty and hope in the kindness — fictional and real — that I have seen in the last couple of days. I believe that such kindness could save us all.